“You got everything you need?” he asked, attention back on the task at hand. The smile had gone, leaving me wondering if I’d seen it at all.
I took one last look at the victim, giving her a respectful nod before turning my back on her. I had my notes and relevant photos. I’d go over them all again back at the Institute. Coleman fell into step beside me. I got the impression he wanted to ask something, so I let the silence linger between us.
It wasn’t until we were beside my car that he asked, “You’ve been to the netherworld?”
My smile barely touched my lips. “I was raised there.”
“What’s it like?”
Someone from the incident van called him over, but he waved back at them without looking. He watched me closely.
How to explain the netherworld to someone who’s never seen it and if they were lucky, never would? “It’s like here,” I said, “but ruined—in more ways than one.” A flicker of puzzlement narrowed his eyes. He wanted to know more, but I wasn’t sure he could handle it. Some things are better left unknown. “Do you really want me to tell you?”
His gaze wandered somewhere over my shoulder into the trees beyond. “I’ve seen what demons are capable of. In the last few years, it’s got a whole lot worse. If I knew where they came from, maybe it would help me understand it all.”
“If it’s understanding you want, you won’t get it from demons. They’re chaos, pure and simple. You could try to figure out the whys, but it won’t do you any good.”
“They must want something? Why are they coming here? Why so many? What’s happening in the netherworld that makes our home so damn appealing?”
“They’ve always been here,” I said carefully, wondering where he was going with this.
“Yeah, but something’s up. A few hundred maybe, in the past… Enough to spark fairy tales and rumors, but now? Something is changing. The equilibrium is in flux, and don’t tell me it isn’t. I’m the one fending off the press when another rumor surfaces.” He stepped closer. I lifted my chin and met his keen eyes. “Where is it all going? What’s their end-game?”
I didn’t have an answer for him. I knew no more than the average rookie Enforcer. As a half-blood, I’d spent my days trapped away from the ebb and flow of demon existence. Even Akil had dodged around the details whenever I’d asked for more. He’d promised to tell me. I didn’t know then that his promises were worthless.
“I… I don’t know.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “But I think you’re right. The status quo is changing.”
Coleman glanced behind him at his colleagues mingling back and forth. Hill wasn’t in sight. “Look, I don’t suppose you want to grab a drink sometime?” When he faced me this time, his gaze wandered nervously. “I’d like to know more. You know, get a handle on the creatures whose mess I’m clearing up. You guys—Enforcers—you get to track ‘em down and send them back. I just... I want to know more. You come in, brush it all under the rug, and me and my people are left out in the dark. I don’t trust the Institute, and I don’t think you do either.”
Mental note: Watch what I say around Coleman. He’s smarter than he looks.
“More demons are breaking through,” he said. His severe expression cut deeper. “The Institute isn’t doing enough. Sooner or later, it’s all goin’ to come out, and it’ll my people in the firing line. I want to be ready when it happens. The Institute doesn’t care.”
Oh, they cared. I didn’t have clearance to visit the medical and weapons divisions, but I heard the whispers. They were experimenting on demons in a big way, searching for weaknesses, learning all they could, but it wouldn’t be enough.
“They’re working on it,” I said, by way of avoiding the truth.
“Just a coffee,” He brushed his thumb across his chin. “Maybe I give you some theories, and you tell me if I’m in the ballpark or way off field?” He waited, saw my frown, and said, “Think about it.”
Spilling classified information would probably get me knee deep in trouble with the Institute. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If I could piss off Adam, I’d be happy. Plus, he was right. He deserved to know more.
He walked back toward his colleagues.
“Hey,” I called. He glanced back. “Give me a call when you get off. We’ll talk.”
He dipped his head in a tight nod and then jogged back to his colleagues. I unlocked the car, muttering to myself, when a dash of movement across the parking area caught my eye. The mist swirled between the skeletal trees but I couldn’t see or hear anything out of place.
I glanced back at the crowd of officials within shouting distance. Coleman was deep in conversation with a uniformed officer. It wouldn’t hurt to take a quick look at the edge of the clearing. I plucked my gun from its holster. A tingling of energy fizzed at my fingertips, my element stirring as my senses focused. I’d missed that little tug of power from my demon back-up.
My boots crunched on the loose gravel as I crossed the clearing. The blanket of mist smothered the city noises. My steady heartbeat drummed in my ears, and my level breathing sounded too loud in the quiet. A trickle of apprehension shivered down my spine.
The quiet became so thick I could almost taste it. It was the kind of quiet that crawls across your skin, the quiet when the crickets stop chirping, and the air hangs motionless. The mist dampened my face and spritzed my hair. I placed my left hand against the nearest tree-trunk and sharpened my senses. I smelled the damp earth and looked down to see overturned leaf mulch. I wasn’t alone.
A twig snapped somewhere ahead. I took a few light steps forward, then paused and glanced back. The mist had closed in behind me, obscuring the parking area. The cops weren’t far, but I couldn’t see or hear them. I’d just take a few more steps, not too far.
I blinked ahead.
Damien stood a few strides into the trees. Detective Hill knelt in front of him. He’d hooked a blood-encrusted chain around her throat and pulled her back, tight against him, like a hangman holding the noose. Her wide eyes pleaded with me. She clawed at the chain, trying to pry it free. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound escaped.
Damien’s ashen face might as well have been a mask. His eyes were cold, like those of a shark. His element wove around me, the ghostly touch of air, not quite there, like a whisper in the dark. It eased around my ankles and slid up my legs. I felt the touch of power embrace my waist and tighten my chest.
I had my gun in my trembling hands but no memory of grabbing it. I clasped both hands around it, but the tremors migrated through me. I could do this... He was just another demon masquerading as a man. My aim wavered. I licked my lips and shifted my stance. Just aim between his eyes and pull the trigger.
“Muse...” he growled. His voice was different spoken from a human mouth. It rumbled and rolled, growled and hissed. He said my name like a curse. It barely sounded human at all. “I will kill her.” He worked hard to form each word and spat them out as though human speech disgusted him.
I tried to swallow, but my throat constricted. Hill’s eyelids drooped. Her mouth worked. Her eyes rolled back.
“Damien...” I gasped. “Please...”
Now he smiled. At least the corner of his lips twitched, but those dead eyes didn’t brighten. He liked to hear me beg. “Drop the weapon.”
My demon twisted. Her fear swirled in my head, mixing with mine. I couldn’t move. My body wouldn’t obey the screams in my head. Shoot, run, drop the weapon, do something, say anything, but I couldn’t. My breaths came in short sharp gasps. Sickly chills spilled across my prickling skin. He was my owner. I belonged to him. I’d tried to kill him. I was terrified of him.
His eyes narrowed slightly. He tucked his chin in and drilled his gaze into my soul. “Obey. Me.”
I opened my mouth to beg, but my breath rushed out of me as though I’d been punched in the stomach. I staggered and reached for the nearest tree. My chest heaved. I tried to suck in air that wasn’t there. I fell to my knees, gun forgotten. It fe
ll from my hand. I clawed at my own throat, trying to work non-existent oxygen into my lungs. My chest burned, lungs bursting. Damien denied me the air I needed to breathe.
Fire burst from my flesh and tried to cocoon me in a protective barrier, but it spluttered and gasped, dying out with a pfft noise. I fell onto my hands. Pressure built inside my head. My sight blurred. The dark of unconsciousness loomed in my peripheral vision, pulsating with the beat of my racing heart.
The abrasive metal chain hooked over my head and wrapped around my throat. Damien yanked my head back so hard he pulled me up onto my knees. I saw the trees swirl and caught sight of Amanda Hill face down on the ground. As my eyes fluttered closed, I wondered if she would live.
* * *
I pried my eyes open. Burned, black trees crowded around. Above their spindly branches, the sky swirled purple and red in black, like mixing ink.
I dragged the sickly sweet air through my teeth, trying to breathe in the soup of elements in the swollen air. Blackened skin layered over my human flesh. Obsidian claws tipped my coal black fingers. My clothes were gone, stripped by the harsh onslaught of elements in the netherworld. I was demon, and I was home.
I flung my wing out and tried to sit up. Damien yanked on the chain around my neck and drove a knee into my spine, leaning all of his weight onto me. My trembling arms gave out, and I collapsed under the weight of him. The chain links clinked tighter… tighter…
“You are mine, Muse.” His voice, harsh and heavy, bored into my skull and emptied out the horrors I’d worked to keep hidden. My memories spilled out of their unlocked box. Everything he’d done, the pain he’d wrought, the agony of an existence among demons, it all came rushing out in a surge of unfiltered emotion.
I desperately summoned my element from the alien world around me, tearing it up from the earth. I mentally reached for the veil, knowing another world of power lay just beyond: the human world. I could summon it all and blast Damien into fragments of smoldering flesh, but the chain tightened, and my thoughts muddied. I tried to reach out in hope, clawing at the pieces of my mind, to ram them back into place, but the darkness came, and my element retreated. The chain pulled tighter. Damien’s growls rumbled. Tremors reverberated through his knee embedded in my back. He bowed forward and pressed his cool face against mine. “It has been too long,” he said, and the blissful embrace of darkness overcame me once more.
Chapter 15
Wood-smoke and the smell of damp earth tickled my nose. I sneezed and jolted fully awake. Fear tried to spur me into action, but as I attempted to sit up, pins and needles shivered down my arms. My wrists were bound behind me. I rolled onto my back, crushing my one tattered wing awkwardly beneath me. Stone walls on all four sides penned me in. A closed timber door seemed to be the only way in and out. Above, I saw the moss-covered underside of a thatched roof. I was in some sort of hut.
Netherworld air encircled me. It filled my lungs and embraced my demon body. The air I dragged through my teeth strummed with frequencies beyond human interpretation. Power. Chaos. Home. A fire smoldered in a grate at the opposite end of the hut. I sensed its familiar warmth reaching out to me even though the fire had died down.
I sat up and became acutely aware of my demon appearance. My skin had burned to black. Ash dusted from my flesh, like the wood ash crumbling in the grate. Embers twitched beneath my skin. My veins pulsed like rivulets of lava. If I’d been in any doubt about my new location, my all-over demon transformation provided all the proof I needed. Bubbling panic threatened to spill from my lips. Crude, maniacal laughter rang like bells in my head. If I let it, the madness would consume me. I’d curl into a ball and succumb. I’d beaten this before. I could do it again. Stronger. Faster. More powerful. I had the tools I needed. I could do this. I had to do this.
If Damien doesn’t get me, Val will.
No, no, I couldn’t think like that. Thoughts of my brother wouldn’t help. Damien was unlikely to tell anyone he had me. Not yet. Val would not yet realize I was back on home soil. Would Akil know? Surely not. A Prince of Hell must have other things to worry about. But what if he knew? He’d want revenge. He’d want a lot of things. He’d have to pick a number and get in line.
Dammit. I could do this. If I could just slip out of the restraints around my wrists... I called to the fire in the grate. The tiny flames licked higher, tasting the air, answering my summons. Focusing my will on the brackets holding my wrists, I pooled the heat there and tugged, but they didn’t break.
Muttering a curse, I twisted my joined wrists around my side to get a good look at them. The shackles had been cut and shaped from a hardwood. They should have combusted when I’d focused on them. On closer inspection, I could see why that hadn’t happened. A string of curiously swirling symbols entwined the cuffs, symbols similar to those adorning the walls outside the Institute. They prevented elemental magic from crossing them. Great, if you wanted to hide a building from demons or tie one up in your hut.
Plan B. I clambered onto unsteady feet and staggered toward the door. Turning sideways so I could reach the wooden latch with my hands, I flicked it open and bumped my shoulder against it, shoving it open. The netherworld vista spread in front of me like an elaborate canvas of dark surrealism. The perpetual half-light muddied my adjusting eyes. Hues of purple and black swirled and mingled like bruises on a beaten landscape. A vast forest carpeted a bank of hills to the right of the hut. On the opposite side of the valley, the forest had been scorched, leaving the trees naked, black and brittle, their branches like skeletal fingers reaching toward the sky. In the distance where the valley cut scored through, a bulbous moon hugged the shimmering surface of an ink-black ocean.
I’d forgotten how devastatingly beautiful the netherworld was.
A hollow baying rolled up the valley. My skin prickled, and my heart hammered faster. I’d heard those hounds before. I shrank back into the warmth of the hut and clicked the latch down. Shutting the door and ignoring the fact I had a realm of demons out to get me didn’t make it any less real. I would need an ally and fast if I had any hope of surviving. I padded bare foot back into the relative safety of the hut and tried to search my memory for something I could use.
The last time I’d been in the netherworld Akil, better known as Mammon the Prince of Greed, had taken me under his wing. He’d taught me how to summon my element, and with that knowledge, I’d killed Damien. Turns out that part had been a lie. No surprise, given Akil’s penchant for bending the truth. For all I knew, they’d planned it that way.
Disgust turned my stomach. Could Akil have deliberately misled me about Damien’s demise? Surely even Akil couldn’t fake revulsion as keen as his for Damien. He had despised my owner. When I’d wanted to hurt Akil, I’d compared him to Damien and watched the infallible Prince lose his cool. That kind of hatred can’t be manufactured. But things had changed. I’d crossed Akil. Could he be helping Damien? I shook the thought away and with it the fear of what a partnership between the two of them could accomplish. I thought I’d known Akil once. I’d been wrong, wrong about a lot of things it seemed.
Damien would be back soon. He wouldn’t risk leaving me for long. I could run. It was tempting, although I was just as likely to be picked off by any number of the horrors lurking outside the hut as I was to be killed by Damien inside it. Until I got the cuffs off, I couldn’t protect myself, and even then the chances were slim. One problem at a time. First, the cuffs. I’d need a weapon to pry them off.
The hut had a stool in one corner, two bowls by the fireplace, two hand carved spoons, and a misshapen jug on the floor beside a bed of straw. The only thing I could use was the fire itself, but even if I could plunge my hands into the flame, it probably wouldn’t burn the cuffs, because of those damn symbols. Worth a shot though.
I tried to angle myself so I could dip my hands into the flame. It took a bit of maneuvering, especially with my single wing pulled against my back. I needn’t have bothered. The fire just licked at me like an eager
puppy, its affection useless. I growled my frustration. Damien would be back soon, and his idea of a reunion was not going to be pleasant. I shivered. Ashes dislodged from my wing and dusted the earth. Okay, if I couldn’t get the cuffs off myself, then my only other option was to get Damien to release them. To do that, I’d need to lie.
I crouched down in front of the fire. I’d lied to a Prince of Hell once. It hadn’t been easy, and I didn’t exactly succeed, but it could be done. I had my ways of using those around me, just as I’d been used. Sex and lies. I didn’t like to do it. It reminded me of what I was: a demon’s property, something to be used and discarded. I’d been raised to believe I was chattel. Why should it hurt? Or perhaps I was kidding myself. My time away from the netherworld had taught me much. Self-worth was one of those lessons.
Lying to Akil would be easier than manipulating my owner. Damien terrified me on a primal, gut wrenching, bowel loosening level. I’d be lucky if I could look him in the eyes without collapsing in a quivering wreck at his feet. You can’t argue with terror. It robs you of all control, snatching coherent thought right out of your body, so you become an animal fuelled by instinct alone, and if those instincts tell you to drop and roll, you do it. I’d have loved to have bravery at my disposal, but it wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t heroic, just a half-blood pet, bought and sold among demons until one tired of me enough to put me out of my misery. Sure, I’d had my eyes opened to the truth in the past six months, but that didn’t change the fact I’d happily scream obscenities at Akil, or shoot a Hellhound between the eyes, instead of standing up to Damien.
But I had beaten him once before.
When I thought I’d killed him, I’d had Akil standing right behind me. I’d failed. Damien was still alive, and I technically belonged to him. I clicked my sharp teeth together as a nervous purr vibrated through me. The more I went over my options, the faster my heart fluttered. Things were different now. I wasn’t the same half-blood Damien had sliced a wing from. I wasn’t the same woman either. Fifteen years. Ten with Akil and five on my own. I’d escaped. I’d moved on. I’d lived, but Damien had the power to tear it all down around me.
Devil May Care: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 2) Page 9