by R. L. Naquin
“Aegis?” he said. “Ma’am?”
At twenty-nine, no woman wants to be called ma’am. My attention refocused. “I’m sorry, what?”
He restated his plan to have his team keep watch until something happened. I’d heard him the first time, but I couldn’t stop trying to figure out his face—his oddly beautiful, yet disturbing face.
The folks in the Hidden world took for granted that they, in general, recognized each other for what they were. As a human, I often found myself in the awkward position of not knowing what sort of creature I was dealing with. Sometimes it didn’t matter. Other times—like this—I had to know or I wouldn’t be able to function until I figured it out.
I opened my mouth to ask, but one of the dwarfs approached, grumbling into his beard.
“Boss, we’ve got too many people standing around. If something dangerous comes charging out, there’s no room to maneuver.”
Lionel nodded. “You’re right. Ma’am, could you have your people clear out, please? Leave one, if you like, but Salgo’s right. We need to keep a clear perimeter.”
Darius and I exchanged a look, then he nodded. I tugged Kam’s sleeve and led her up the porch steps and into the house, with Riley following.
Once we got inside, I turned on Kam. “What do you know about that guy?”
She shrugged. “I met him a few months ago when I was passing through Monterey. Darius and I had a contract to chase down the soul of a businessman who’d slipped off to finish a big housing contract after he died. His spirit caused all sorts of trouble in an abandoned warehouse, and Lionel’s team was out there to help.” She paused. “He’s pretty.”
Riley snorted, and I turned to look at him. “What?” I asked.
He smirked. “Of course he’s pretty. Why wouldn’t he be?”
Maurice walked into the living room from the hallway. “What are we talking about? That guy Lionel?”
Riley nodded. “Yeah. The girls think he’s good looking.”
Maurice laughed. “Of course he is. Duh. Why would he be an uggo?”
Kam folded her arms under her breasts. “So, what? I don’t care why he’s pretty. I can appreciate it, just the same.”
I scowled and stomped my foot like a petulant child. “Would somebody please tell me what I’m missing?”
Mom walked out of the kitchen sipping a cup of tea, wandered to the window and glanced outside. “Who’s the skinwalker?” she asked. “He seems to be giving orders. Is that the O.G.R.E. squad from Petaluma?”
I rolled my eyes. “Clearly I’m missing a valuable skill set. How the hell do you all know what he is and I don’t? For that matter, what’s a skinwalker?”
“He’s a shapeshifter, sort of,” Kam said. “And you’ve only been in our world for about a year. Give it some time. You’ll start getting it.”
Mom gave Kam an amused look. “Not exactly a shapeshifter. The shape remains the same. It’s the skin that changes.”
I had a bad feeling that I didn’t want to know the particulars in this, but I asked anyway. “How exactly do they change their skin?”
“Like a suit.” Kam grinned, as if putting on a new skin were a trick she admired and wished she could duplicate. “They get them from the morgue. Dead people don’t need their skins anymore.”
I swallowed hard, feeling queasy. “You’re kidding me. And the Board allows this?”
Mom put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “The Board arranges it. I’m sorry, baby. I thought keeping you in the dark all those years would protect you. Turns out, it’s handicapped you.”
To be fair, it had also given me strengths she’d never understand. I hadn’t been whisked away for training like she had. Everything I’d learned, I’d learned on my own. And every battle I’d fought, I’d done without the aid of a government entity calling the shots behind me.
For that matter, I’d fought battles, period. Until she got herself kidnapped, Mom had spent eighteen years living in a cottage in the woods, being something of a caretaker to whoever showed up at her door. She was more like a country doctor to the Hidden than a protector.
Clearly, I was doing this whole Aegis thing wrong. I went on rescue missions, helped rebuild a broken government, policed rogue Hidden, and took in some of the Hidden as permanent members of my household. According to my mother, I should have been staying home tying bandages and bottle-feeding orphaned swamp bogies, not trying to save the world.
Handicapped? My ass. From the first day I’d been exposed to this, I’d embraced it as a new identity rather than a job.
So what if I couldn’t classify a skinwalker when I saw one? I had half a dozen loyal people—minimum—around at any given moment to step in with the information.
I swallowed the thought and forced a smile. “It’s okay, Mom. You did what you could.” The inside of my house felt stifling and too full of people. “I’m going out back for awhile.”
“Want company?” Kam asked.
I shook my head. “I just need some air. You guys sort out how you want to integrate with Lionel and his guys. I want one of us on that portal at all times, regardless of what he’s doing.”
I walked away before anyone had a chance to ask me questions. I needed quiet to think. I needed a break from other people’s expectations.
The backyard was isolated from anything going on in the house or out front, because of the bubble around it. It was never totally empty, since Molly the brownie and her family lived in the far northwest corner. Convalescing Hidden often stayed in the tents there, too, but it was still peaceful.
I needed air.
“Handicapped,” I muttered. “I saved your sorry ass. Twice.”
“Trouble?” Sara sat in a lawn chair on the far side of a dead campfire. She’d been so still, I hadn’t seen her. Her face was lined with tension and her hands clutched the arms of the metal chair as if she were afraid of floating away if she let go.
I tugged my sweater around myself and sat next to her. “No. I’m just grumpy. You okay?”
“Just grumpy.”
We sat in silence, sharing our grump with each other. Best friends could do that. No questions asked.
The breeze from the nearby bay did a lot to scrub away some of my irritation, and I suspected it helped soothe some of Sara’s fears and worry.
We watched as a pair of gulls swooped past, cawing at each other and fighting over what looked like a sandwich. I wondered if people with perfectly normal lives were picnicking on the beach not far from where we sat, their biggest worry in the world that they were short one salami-and-Swiss sandwich.
Sara’s phone buzzed. She eyed the display then looked up at me. “Sorry. It’s Louise calling me back. I have to take this.”
I nodded and she wandered off. The sound of her voice was comforting. I couldn’t hear her words—and didn’t want to, since it wasn’t my business—but her tone was more normal as she spoke to her therapist, less icy and shocked.
A few minutes later, she came back to the campsite. The tension in her face had eased and she looked more like herself.
I tilted my head. “Okay?”
She smiled and curled into the chair she’d vacated. “Better. Not okay, but better. You?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Better.”
After about a half hour of blessed, shared silence, the back door slammed open, and Maurice popped his head into the bubble so he could see us.
“Zoey, you’d better come out here.” His eyes were wide, but his voice was steady and careful. “Someone came through the portal.”
“Who? Is it dangerous?” I was up and out of my chair before he finished speaking. No matter what was out there, I refused to hide in my backyard.
His forehead creased with worry, and he glanced at Sara. “I’d say so. Zoey, it’s the queen of the demons. And she’s asking for you by name.”
Chapter Five
The queen of the demons was, quite possibly, the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. Also, the most t
errifying.
Her exquisite cheekbones rose and blended into black-and-gold ram horns that started above her temples and curled around her pointed, jewel-tipped ears. Sapphire eyes—shaped like almonds and fringed with dark lashes—perfectly complemented the sky blue of her skin and the dark purple of her lips. Her outfit wasn’t much more than a few strips of leather, grommets and airy purple and blue material, so it left no doubt about the perfect shape of her body. Here and there, swirls of purple decorated her smooth skin like runes.
She stood in a casual pose, surrounded by a wary Darius and Riley. Lionel and his guys stood a few paces back in offensive stances, as if they could take this lady down with their bare fists if she made a wrong move. I had my doubts. Lionel, especially, looked about as dangerous as any guy you might meet on karaoke night in a bowling alley. For all we knew his skin used to belong to exactly that sort of guy. I cringed at the thought.
Darius, as a freelance soul chaser, and Riley, as a soul reaper, had a better chance of defending us if she attacked out of nowhere. They were both equipped with soul stones that could rip the woman’s soul out of her body—provided, of course, the queen of the demons actually had a soul to rip out.
“Ah,” the demon queen said, offering an elegant hand shining with jeweled rings and bracelets. “You must be Zoey Donovan.” She smiled, and her teeth gleamed white and pointed.
I took her hand in a firm grip and we shook. “Welcome to our world.”
The portal shimmered a few feet away, but I kept my eyes focused on hers. I was dazzled and a little intimidated, but I refused to back down and show fear. I suspected it was important to greet the demon queen as an equal from the start or I’d never regain the lost ground. I didn’t care for the idea of being her lackey.
“You may call me Talia. My full name is a little tricky.” She pointed at the portal. “I imagine that’s a bit of a problem for you. It’s not delighting me, either.”
“So, you didn’t open it?”
Her dark eyebrows rose in surprise. “Of course not. I can’t have portals sitting open. I run a tight ship. If demons come and go without my permission, all sorts of things can go wrong. We have rules, you know.”
I did know. When Sebastian had run around Sausalito killing women and raping my friend, I’d come across a Demon Handbook. It was one of the reasons we were able to send him back to where he’d come from before he could finish killing Sara. There were all kinds of strict rules in that book.
“Who opened it, then?” I asked.
She tilted her head to the side. “I was hoping you’d know.”
“The Church of Hidden Wisdom was here a little while ago, chanting. Could they have opened it?”
“Not likely. You can’t chant a portal open.” She gestured at Kam. “I see you have a djinn here. She could have opened it.”
Kam’s olive skin paled. “I didn’t. I swear, Your Majesty.” She made a quick, awkward curtsy.
“No.” I took a step in front of Kam. I didn’t care for Talia’s accusation. “It wasn’t her. It takes a full charge from a djinn to open a portal, right? Kam couldn’t do it. Trust me.”
Talia stared past me at Kam for a moment, as if reading her soul, then dismissed her. “Outside of the leaders of a given world, the only magic I know of that can open a portal is djinn magic. This portal is the sixth one to open from my world in as many days.”
“Six?” I’d only been mildly concerned about the first portal. Six meant someone had a bigger plan. One that probably didn’t include delivering chocolate-dipped strawberries and a stuffed purple unicorn in a fancy basket arrangement. Something more ominous was probably going on. “I’d heard about one in Wales. There are four others?”
“Except for the one in Wales, all of them opened near an Aegis. I checked on them myself.”
“Was anyone hurt?” The hair on my arms rose, expecting the worst.
“No. I was able to close them before anything happened.” She frowned. “Is it true there are only a few of you left? What in the twenty-seven hells has been going on out here?”
“Well, first there was a—” I realized we were still standing outside. If Talia was going to kill us, she’d have done it by now. Keeping her out of the house was rude, and Maurice would likely give me an earful later for my terrible manners. “Would you like to come inside and sit down?”
Talia didn’t answer. She strode to the portal and smoothed her hand over the rippling surface. A moment later, a large, rabid-looking, green rabbit hopped out.
“Watch the exit,” she said. “No one comes through from either direction. Understood?”
The hellbunny twitched its nose, growled and disappeared through the portal.
“Should be safe now.” She turned her back on the portal. “Probably best to keep a person or two on this side watching, just in case. Demons aren’t always well behaved.”
“Don’t I know it.” I pressed my lips together, embarrassed. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. But as spectacular and exotic as Talia looked, to me, the term demon would always bring to mind Sebastian, the incubus.
She hooked her arm through mine and we wandered toward the house with Kam and Darius guarding the portal and Riley following us close behind. “You’ve dealt with demons before?”
I gave her a rueful smile. “Have I got a story to tell you.”
* * *
Sitting on my couch across from me, Talia, queen of the demons was nothing like I would have expected. For one thing, when I told her the story about what Sebastian had done when he was here, she was horrified. For another, that horror manifested in six new sets of eyes flying open along the ridges of her gorgeous cheekbones.
“I did not authorize any physical contact or killing,” she said. Her voice had a sharp, chilly edge to it that gave me shivers. “There are strict rules governing an incubus visitation on your plane. Why didn’t your local O.G.R.E. squad deal with him?”
Riley snorted, but stood otherwise silent keeping an eye on the room from the hallway. If Talia took it in her head to kill me all of a sudden, I supposed he’d tackle her. Or something.
“There wasn’t an O.G.R.E. team at the time.” I sighed, knowing I’d have to explain that to her too. “Several women died horrible deaths. And the damage to my friend Sara is only beginning to manifest itself.”
Talia pursed her lips in thought. “I would like to meet this Sara, if she will see me.”
I frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I’ll talk to her.”
“No, I’ll talk to her.” Maurice had been hovering in the kitchen, listening. Before I realized he was gone, he took off after Sara and the kitchen door slammed shut behind him.
A minute later, the front door banged open, and Kam stood in the doorway, breathless. “Come outside. Hurry.” Her ponytail whipped around and she disappeared into the yard.
Kam, Riley, Talia and I piled outside, stumbling over each other. My driveway was a mess of blood and gore. I hadn’t noticed the streak of blood down the side of Kam’s face.
One of Lionel’s dwarfs sat on the gravel, dazed, cradling his left elbow, a swollen lump over one eye.
The other dwarf, Salgo, was not so lucky.
His small body lay still with his face in the grass, one leg at an impossible angle, the other ripped from the hip socket and lying a few feet away. Lionel’s beautiful face sagged on one side, as if the skin were about to slip off the bone.
Darius was nowhere to be seen.
“What the hell happened?” My voice came out small and breathy.
Riley bolted down the steps to the dwarf, checking him for life. He shook his head at me, then turned the body over on its back so he could check for a stranded soul stuck inside.
He pressed his reaper ring against the man’s lips and tugged until the trapped soul came free. It drifted out in a single strand, then absorbed into the soul stone of Riley’s ring.
Kam stared at the portal, her eyes wide. “It just came out of nowhere. No w
arning. It didn’t stop to look around or anything. It attacked before we had time to react.”
Talia placed her hand on Kam’s shoulder, her voice soothing. “What came out? What did you see?”
Kam shrugged. “I don’t really know what it was. Hairy and snarly, like a werewolf. But, you know, not a werewolf.”
I frowned. “Like in Wales. They said a portal opened and a werewolf was wandering around. But it’s nowhere near a full moon, and this is a demon portal.” I turned to Talia. “Have you got something like that?”
“There’s a family of demons called aswangs. Some could fit that description, I suppose. But I don’t understand what one would be doing in this world.” She stepped toward the portal. “Where did it go? Did it return to my world?”
Lionel pressed his fingers against his face, trying to steady the skin. “No. It ran toward the woods, then veered off, as if it hit a wall.”
“It must’ve hit the fairy ring. It goes partway into the woods,” I said.
“That would do it.” He let go of his face, but the skin slipped again, so he had to put his hand back. “Your man Darius took off after it.”
I glanced at the sky. It was afternoon. Sunset was hours away, so Darius was still in human form. This would have been a whole lot more convenient if it had been night already. Then Darius would be full-on mothman and would have wings. Instead, he was stuck chasing this thing on foot.
Talia took a scowling step toward the portal and stuck her head inside to look around. After a moment, she pulled out again.
“There’s no one near the portal on that side.” Anger rolled off of her in waves. “I don’t know what happened to my guard, and there will be nine kinds of hell to pay when I find out.”
So far, I wasn’t impressed with how the queen of the demons ran her world. Forgetting the fiasco with Sebastian, we’d seen unsupervised portals, rogue demons she couldn’t identify and missing guards in the last few hours alone.
Tight ship, my ass. Maybe less time coming up with skimpy clothes and more time making your people behave.