by Lexi Ostrow
“The attack?”
The raspy voice was so gargled and guttural she had to strain to make sense of the words that were strung together. She really hated working with these demons. “All are dead except the girl.”
Seraphina wanted to pull confirmation which girl, but Thrasher’s weren’t the most intelligent and they didn’t like it when what little intelligence they had was questioned so she bit her tongue. “Delightful. Where are my two pet Strangleholds?”
He didn’t speak this time. Instead he stepped to the left and allowed her to see into the hovel he called a home. In the corner two large humanlike creatures were heaped on top of one another, blood circling their bodies on the stone floor. She nodded, pleased that he’d been able to handle two of the brutes at once. “Good. Did they deliver my message to the girl?” She’d needed a way to get rid of the Stranglehold brothers, but she’d also needed something that could articulate properly to speak to little Miss Eliza.
“They did. She seemed to be believe them rather quickly, my Queen.”
Wonderful, that meant Lucius hadn’t been doing his best to seduce and fool her. Never the matter, she was done trying to infiltrate the Alliance through seduction. There were much easier ways to gain entrance, such as turning one of the hunter’s into a demon. Very few demons had transformative powers, but for some, it was the only way to keep their breed alive. She was still seeking out the best to use for her purpose, but for now the only thing that was clear was that Lucius would now be coming home to do exactly what he’d been doing for fifty years, killing and bringing her souls for her collection.
“You have my thanks. You are a trusted and valued component of this war and I am more than happy to share the spoils of our victory with you.”
“As you have stated,” his graveled voice actually irritated her ears, “but when will this day be? We have been fighting the humans under your orders for almost fifteen years.”
Seraphina bared her fangs at the demon and hissed. “The time will come, but not until we have the resources we need.” She didn’t want anything further to do with the Thrasher and she half suspected he was going to turn on her any moment so she transported herself out. She felt the drain on her body immediately. Fallen couldn’t just pop in and out as their Pure counterparts could. It put a massive strain on them and that wasn’t ideal since she still had to pay Lucius a visit. One that may or may not end in his death by her hands. Finding him was not the issue as she had a blood contract with any and all of her servants. A single drop of blood mixed with her own and dropped into a small vile that she kept in a cabinet on the same wall as her bed.
One moment she was in her chambers and the next she was standing beside Lucius, the sky was still black with night and twinkled with stars. Large manors lined each side of the street, some close to one another, but many further apart. This was what she was looking forward to. To stealing residences such as these and living as the humans did, parading around their grounds thinking they were so superior. She snarled and it drew Lucius’ attention. His head whipped around and she felt the press of a dagger against her throat as her back crashed into the ground.
Her laughter was a rich, loud sound and it filled the quiet of the night. She knew they weren’t near his precious Eliza’s house because by now her Alliance had been called in and even the human police force, so he must have run from her already. She put her hands on his chest and pushed up, launching him into the air and as he crashed to the ground she rose off of it, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Not happy to see me then, Lucius? Such a pity.” She walked to where he was and pouted down at him. His hand wrapped around her ankle and she counter-acted, whipping her foot to the right and breaking his hold. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“You bitch!” He flung himself at her again and this time the dagger connected with her arm. A bright stain of red seeped from the shallow wound instantly. It didn’t hurt but it had been a while since any had managed to maim her. She was almost impressed.
“Oh do sit down, Lucius dear.” Again, she put her hands on his chest and used her strength to force him into the ground. He snarled at her, but she held him tight. Her strength was waning from two transports in a close range of time, but she was still easily able to hold him down. “I take it your little human mate wasn’t thrilled to learn of the secret you were keeping.”
“If you think you can push me to talking, you’re wrong. Aside from her keeping Alliance information very well guarded, any desire I had to help you is certainly gone now.” She wasn’t sure what he was doing as he closed his eyes, but she figured he was trying to calm himself, knowing that attacking her would surely be his last action if he did it again.
“It’s no matter to me now, Lucius. I have another way into the Alliance and your services will not be needed. However, if you would like you may return and finish out the contract for your disastrous lifestyle. I was going to kill you, but there is really no need to lose a soul collector. I do have plans for them after all.” She’d expected some sort of response from him, even if it was another disgusting curse that caused her to twist his head from his neck like a grape from the vine. But he did nothing. His eyes remained closed and he was ignoring her.
“Seraphina.”
The voice slid over her body and sent goose bumps over her flesh. Her whole body tensed and she took her hands off Lucius’ shoulders. Slowly, she turned behind her and her knees almost gave out at the image.
“Demetrious.” His name wasn’t much more than a whisper and he took a step closer to her. His crystal eyes sparkled and his long hair blew behind him in the wind. His hands wrapped around her and pulled her close. She sighed and sagged against him, except she didn’t. She slipped and connected with the wall just behind her love.
“Demetrious.” Her mind wasn’t working right or she would’ve remembered that she’d destroyed his soul a century ago. All she could think of was how good his hands running up and down her back felt. She was so lost in the fantasy that his words cut deep. He stepped away from her and laughed.
“You vile, disgusting creature. You think you can place your hands upon me? That I would allow your filth and evil to contaminate all that I am? You are a plague, Seraphina, and you have no use to anyone.”
No one had even known what happened between them so many years ago and the words were like hot pokers in her side and she felt herself lose control. She screamed and lunged herself in his direction as she had done when he’d spoken those words to her a century ago. Only this time her body passed right through him and she slammed into a fence, the pain ricocheted through her body. She turned, chest heaving with exertion and found herself looking at only Lucius. His eyes were open now, a smirk on his face.
“Getting weak, Seraphina? Allowing me to slip into your mind like that. And now that I’ve done it, now that I know the thing that you fear most, there’s nothing you can do to stop the nightmares I can unleash on you.” He was the one who laughed this time and her eyes widened as the realization of what happened sunk in.
She’d been weak from transporting and so focused on gloating that he’d been able to get inside her mind and see her fear. The encounter with Demetrious hadn’t been fear exactly. But his reaction to her when she’d fallen to save him was enough to haunt her dreams without Lucius interfering. She would have to rid herself of Lucius now. With that kind of power over her he would be impossible to control, it had been the real reason she had done away with his kind, she truly feared what they could do in an attack on her. It would have been nice against the humans, but she hadn’t been about doing anything that could put her in danger.
“Congratulations, Nightmare Demon. You’ve earned your freedom. I realize that any attack I try on you now would need to be swift and without my own dagger, I cannot kill you quickly enough for you to be unable to unleash my personal hell on me once more. Do not think this means that you are safe, Lucius. I can send others after you, you are weak.”
He took a step closer t
o her, still leaving a respectable enough distance before he spoke. “No, you see this is how it’s going to go. I have pissed off my mate protecting you because to a small degree I saw use in your cause. Our kind is slaughtered by the Pure Angels and now the Alliance of Silver and Steam. I am not whole-heartedly against an attack on them, though I am beginning to think your side will lose. They have incredible stamina and a drive to protect one another. I witnessed it the night your Fallen attacked and three hunters who didn’t know Eliza appeared to save her and the residents of Halifax.” He took another step closer and she saw the cold deadness of his black eyes. “So here is what is going to happen. You are going to see to it that in twenty-four hours the demon you allowed, and most likely ordered, to attack my mate’s family, comes to me. Tell he, she or the whole fucking tribe of them that I have Felicia and Greyston ready for transport, but that you can’t make it topside. I will kill them for what they did in your name and then you will leave me alone or I will find the handful of Nightmare Demons still alive and share your fear with them.”
His breath was hot on her face and she realized he’d fully closed the gap between them as he talked. Her body wanted to shake with fear at his words, but she would never allow a lesser demon to see weakness. “It would appear we are at a stalemate, my friend. In exchange for your freedom, your silence in demon matters and delivering the Thrasher who did this to you, you will never concern yourself with demon matters. You’ve chosen a human and I won’t get into the conversation with you about the disgust that fills me with since you really are a talented lover.” She pulled back from him and turned to walk away. She half expected him to attack again as she walked, but he didn’t. She was going to be stuck here for a time until her strength returned. They were too far from the nearest actual entrance to Hell and she knew of more than one lesser demon she could intimidate into giving her lodgings.
Chapter 16
Lucius was torn between a feeling of outrageous fury and gayness. He’d done the impossible. He had not only broken into a Fallen’s mind for control, he’d freed himself from Seraphina’s grasp. Even if it meant looking over his shoulder for some time, sooner or later she would forget him and move on. But the anger that coiled in his gut like a viper ready to strike was at war with his elation. Eliza was hurt, not fatally, but if her guild didn’t get there soon it would be. She was hurt and she’d likely never trust him again. Seraphina getting off with only a slight mind fuck didn’t seem to be justice enough. But there could always be room for retribution later. For now, all he wanted was the Thrasher demon’s head on a plate, and body parts spread across the world. Regardless of what she thought of him, he loved her and she loved him. No one was ever going to hurt her again as long as he lived.
Nothing would ever hurt him worse, cut as deep, as the look in her eyes when he couldn’t say that the demon that’d attacked her had been lying. It was as if every iota of hope she’d been holding on to was shattered with a mallet and flung from her eyes at him. She’d trembled and bit into her lip and there’d been nothing he could do to erase the betrayal, well there had been one thing. He knew now that had he agreed to help them catch Seraphina she would forgive him. She loved him and she’d said it and never taken it back. He hadn’t even been able to enjoy the sound of the words coming from her properly because of the situation they’d been in.
He hadn’t been ready to turn over Seraphina. Not because she didn’t deserve it, but the persecution of his species would continue even with her out of the way. He didn’t really care what happened to humans, so long as that human wasn’t Eliza. But now he had to wonder if it had been the wrong answer. If he’d said yes, would she have allowed him to remain in her life once they returned to London? The answer wasn’t one he would ever know. He wasn’t like Greyston, he wasn’t a good guy in the body of a bad one. He was a bad one and every demon detector would always go off near him. He’d seen the way she spoke of the guild and the Alliance, it was her home and he doubted she would leave it for him.
“It was a lost cause either way then wasn’t it?” Who had he been fooling with the belief that they would make it simply because he had managed to make her love him? He should have known better than to hope to live a dream. “You can’t live in a dream if all you’ve ever done is walk through nightmares.”
His fingers wrapped around the device he’d slipped into his pocket on his way out of Eliza’s house. The sun was officially up now and he felt the strain of it in his body. Though he’d walked two streets over from Eliza’s he wasn’t going any farther. He needed to get away from her, needed to go somewhere where he wouldn’t disobey her wishes and piss her off further. But he’d taken that communication wristband of hers. It felt like nothing more than a supremely thick leather strap in his pocket. But if he ran his hand over the front side he could feel the smooth glass and the knobs across the top. There wasn’t any part of him that knew how to use the device. He’d watched Eliza push a series of three knobs in and tug one out the two times she’d used it. But he wasn’t certain he wished to speak to the gnarled sounding older gentleman who ran the guild, or was at least in charge of Eliza.
Lucius yanked the device out of his pocket and brought it close to his face, turning it over slowly, staring at every intricate detail looking for something that might indicate a working knob. The leather was a rich cocoa brown and the clock face a snow white. It was then he noticed the hands didn’t appear to move on the face of the watch. No second hand ticked an annoying beat and the face of the watch didn’t contain numbers. There were symbols in the place of the main numbers; twelve, three, six and nine. At the top was a symbol, a cog and gear, to the right the medical symbol, on the bottom sat the letter “A” in script and finally the last image was of a beaker. “Hmm, I would bet these need to be set to reach certain people.” Not that he would have any clue as to whom. Turning the strap around he laughed at the small etchwork on the smallest knob. On the knob’s end was the letter “F” - which he could only hope stood for Felicia. That was who he wanted really, Felicia and Greyston. The demon hunter may dislike him greatly, but he was relying on her mated bond to a demon and love of a close friend to send her his way.
He closed his eyes and pushed the knob in, nothing happened. None of the strange rumbling or clicking came from the device. He grimaced, and eyes still closed, wrapped his forefingers around the knob again and pulled. He felt a strange vibration coming from the device in his hand and heard the clicking noise he heard when Eliza had just used it. A part of him was curious how it worked and the other part was so delighted that it did. He wasn’t going to question it. Just hope that the tiny “f” stood for Felicia.
“Eliza! Are you all right? Master Agardawes reached out to me. Greyston and I will be coming to transport you back to the Alliance.” Felicia’s voice was speedy, obviously upset for her friend.
He let out a breath, relived that it had found the proper destination. “This isn’t Eliza.” He opened one eye and then the other, breathing out a sigh of relief again. Lucius began to walk back in the direction of Eliza’s as he spoke. He’d only walked away due to the rising number of gatherers, he’d never intended to get distracted with an unwanted visit and stay away for so long. “Don’t cut the connection.”
There was a moment of silence and then Greyston spoke. “Lucius get out of where ever you are. You can’t be seen with her, they’ll know what you are and you don’t stand a chance in hell.” Greyston’s voice was clipped. Clearly the fiery redhead was not interested in dealing with him. No doubt she blamed him for whatever had occurred, even if she had no idea what it was.
“I took this, whatever is. I’m not with her. She kicked me out.” His voice lowered with the admission. Hurt creeped its way back into his heart. There would be no making peace with this choice. He was a demon and it was appropriate that he had finally damned himself.
“I’m not going to pry. Felicia tossed my arrogant arse to the curb too. And then she came crawling back and made love to
me like the mate that she is. OW!” Lucius smiled, he had a decent feeling Felicia had just hit him fairly hard. “What are you calling for then and you’d better get this back to her. They’re specifically keyed for certain frequencies, don’t ask me how they learned it but I’d stolen the tech awhile back for my own use, when I was a vigilante.”
“I need you both here, in Halifax. We’re going to take down the demons that did this to Eliza and from the looks of her house it was a small army of them. I’m going to need your skills and your fiancé’s gun.” Seraphina hadn’t told him how many had attacked the home. But there was no way it hadn’t been a simultaneous hit. Noises like that would have easily torn Eliza from the dream, even if she’d been enjoying herself. The screams hadn’t gotten to him either, which meant the demons hadn’t played with their victims. They probably knew there wouldn’t be time.
“Are you certain this isn’t a trap? And if you’ve been with Eliza this whole time how did you allow her to get attacked in the dead of night when you’re supposedly at your strongest?” Felicia cut into the conversation. “And we are coming anyway.”
“We were otherwise engaged during the attack. There’s nothing to explain. Seraphina arrived to gloat and she was weakened from something. Weak enough that her mental guards were down and I was able to force a nightmare hallucination in.”
“There’s always more to explain when a demon is involved. Just look at the mess Greyston can get into and he’s Captain of the Guard. Your kind has a way of stirring trouble and getting noticed, but that isn’t the point. So what if you scared her? She isn’t six feet under rotting or you would have led with that comment. I hope. ” Felicia almost sounded bored.
“Once a Nightmare Demon knows a target’s fear they can take them down anytime, anywhere. Seraphina knows that. The problem is she is still too strong for me as a Fallen to kill. I can make her life hell though. So it was decided upon. She would give me the demons that did this by tomorrow night, my freedom from servitude and in exchange I leave her alone.”