Rage Against the Devil (Wild Beasts Series Book 2)

by T. Birmingham

  She felt the chill against her skin as they walked up the small hill to the clearing of the newest crime scene. She had to feed. Yes, it was the day after Thanksgiving, and she was starving for what her body really needed. She just felt strange having others know what she ate. It wasn’t a typical diet – for neither supernatural creatures nor humans.

  She wasn’t big on holidays, but Alexia and Devon had thrown on a bit of a shindig the night before. They’d eaten in the half-finished dining hall of their community’s new lodge, and Eire had spent the whole time sandwiched between Gimp and Nicky eating stuffing and asparagus, waiting until she could sneak out to get some blood. It hadn’t been until later that night that she and Gimp had been able to grab something that would nourish her Fae side. Unfortunately, the blood had only satisfied one of her Fae gifts.

  Her gaze fixed on the horizon and the still dark sky, and she shivered. She was never so susceptible to the elements as she was when she forgot to eat. She turned her head and met the worried gaze of Gimp who was climbing the rocky hill right behind her.

  His lips moved, mouthing the question she least wanted to answer, “You okay?”

  She nodded her head in the affirmative even though she really wanted to eat. Good god, did she need to eat. Gimp, Alexia, Devon, Danny, and Ginny all followed. Nicky led the way. She watched as he moved, memorizing his predator’s gait and focusing on anything other than the gnawing in her stomach. She tripped over a rock and caught her hand on the small stones. Blood gushed from the wounds, which filled with sediment. Not quite what she’d needed, but it did the trick in waking her up at least. She felt Gimp at her back, but she ignored the hand he reached out to her.

  “I can do it,” she said arrogantly, lifting herself up from the ground. She brushed herself off. “Move ahead.” She hated their worried glances and she just wanted them to go. “I’m fine.”

  She felt the vibrations under her feet as Nicky walked toward her.

  “What you need is to feed, Eire.” She gulped down the air around her, trying to fill her lungs with something other than the pain of her side stitches telling her to get over her fucking qualms about meal time.

  “She’s a Fae of Swords,” Ginny said from her side when she hunched over.

  “Please,” Eire whispered. “Please, just be quiet.”

  Nicky got down to her level and as gently as he could, he helped her sit. Fuck it all! She was not an infant, but this was what she got for not taking care of herself, for having too much pride to just suck it up and eat.

  “Blood won’t work,” Gimp said from her other side.

  “Jesus, would you all stop crowding her?” Alexia said from where she stood in front of her mate. Devon’s look was concerned, but he didn’t move. He was a big bear of a man, and he lumbered about most of the time, but he was also quiet when he needed to be, always listening. It was unnerving. “She obviously has some sort of special diet and doesn’t need you vultures getting all up in her business. For fuck’s sake, peeps.” Alexia blew out a breath. “Gimp, help Eire and meet us at the site.” She turned to Eire. “You,” she said sternly. “Meet us when you can. I’m sure as soon as you get something in you, you’ll join us at the mountaintop all topped off and back to the beautiful, strong, cold fucking bitch we all know you to be.” Eire saw Devon give her a kiss on the forehead before nodding his chin toward Eire and heading up the mountainside again.

  “I love my cousin. She doesn’t deal with the cray-cray bullshit all the normal people be going on about. Come on, Nicky,” Ginny prodded as she grabbed his hand to drag him along.

  “Don’t,” Eire rasped out, zoning her stellar Fae eyesight in on their joined hands. Eire blamed it on her hunger. Shit, she hoped it was mostly hunger, but her reaction scared her nonetheless. She watched in slow motion as Ginny dropped Nicky’s hand. Ginny smirked and Nicky frowned.

  “Don’t…don’t wait for us, wolf,” Eire said, trying to fix her eerie fuck-up. He nodded his head slowly and put his hand on Ginny’s back, watching Eire intently. Eire tightened her jaw against the pain in her side and also in reaction to the jealousy that burned through her. Jesus, she was a million times fucked if this was her reaction to a Clan member she’d just met a week earlier.

  They’d settled into a bit of a rhythm this past week. He’d come back early from a run, since he worked most days and was up by four. Way too early for Eire. She was used to going to bed after four or five in the morning and getting up about noon. He always brought back food, though. Rabbits seemed to be his favorite, but he’d brought back a deer a few days earlier that should have lasted a while, but they were both big eaters because of their natures. He also had the chicken and duck eggs in the back yard, and she’d decided to make herself useful. She didn’t like owing anyone, and helping around the yurt was her only way of paying her debt to him. Small price, but she needed to do something.

  That first morning she’d gone out to get an egg, the chickens had given her a hard time and if she’d been human, she’d have been all scratched up. As it was, she’d walked back into the yurt covered in feathers, her hair all out of sorts and a nick in her sweater. Damn chickens were lucky she hadn’t had on her leather jacket.

  And Nicky had laughed. Full out laughed.

  “I can do it tomorrow,” was all he’d said through his laughter.

  The next morning, she’d made sure she was up by five to get the eggs before he was back from his run. She and the chickens had come to an agreement and the ducks were just fine with her. Now, she’d gotten eggs every morning since she’d been at Nicky’s. She didn’t attempt to break down her feelings about his look that first morning when he’d smiled at her, taken the eggs, and brushed her hand with a “thanks.”

  She’d shivered and croaked out a “whatever.” Tough bitch that she was.

  Of course, she’d never lived in such close quarters with someone for a week. A week at Nicky’s was quiet and peaceful, all tucked away like it was, but there was a new tension she’d been experiencing. And every time she looked at the wolf, she felt like her body was being pulled by a tight string, asking her to stand closer to him, to find subtle ways to reach out to him. She ignored her body’s needs as best she could.

  In spite of her self-imposed distance, the motorcycle always got her in trouble. So tightly wrapped close to his body as she rode the wind, all the while trying to keep those long maintained barriers in place.

  “Do you have any on you?”

  “Do I look like I have any on me, Gimp?” Eire shot back. Shit. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

  “Wow, you must really be hungry if you’re apologizing for being a bitch. It’s par for the course with you, Ice,” he said, giving her chin a chuck.

  “I haven’t had time to get any, Gimp.” She hung her head. “I’ve been getting blood in town — a little here, a little there. But shit! Stupid,” she said to herself.

  “Not stupid,” Gimp said, kindness in his voice that she knew she didn’t deserve and was only getting because she was in pain. “Just embarrassed.” Fuck, as soon she ate, she was going back to not giving a fuck what anyone else thought of her. Being weak wasn’t a risk she was willing to take no matter her goddamned embarrassment.

  “Can you get me some? I hate to ask,” Eire said, “but I’m not gonna be able to move. I’m low on blood, too.”

  “Good, god, girl,” Kieran said, his face a pale mask of frustration and worry. “You’ll need to feed on some blood today then too, when you get the chance. I’d lend you my vein, but you know we don’t work that way.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Trow,” she said, giving him a small smile. Blood exchanges for a Fae were unique. She needed to take blood from someone who was attracted to her. Didn’t matter if she was attracted to them, as long as she got their blood pumping. Damn Fae extras. She just loved it. Sarcasm, thy name is…

  She waited for him to return, but he was quick. She was sure he’d had to traverse because what he’d needed to find was a good five miles away, at
an In Between. Again, her Fae heritage at work. An In Between was a Fae term for a place or time that stood in between. The time between sunrise and sunset…a doorway… Really, so many things were In Between. Even the Veil itself was an In Between for the dead before they traveled on to the Afterworld or Underworld.

  She grabbed at the bag, so fucking ravenous that she’d barely opened it before she was covered in the stuff. She gulped it down, letting the rough yet mushy texture coat her mouth. She turned to Gimp, and he had a water bottle ready, which she also grabbed to help her digest over half of the bag’s contents. Normally, a good cup of the delicious full-bodied mixture was enough, but she’d been over seven days without, and that just wasn’t good for her Stone side. She gulped down another bite and stuck the baggie in her leather jacket pocket, picking at her teeth to get the harder bits and pieces out.

  “Better?” Gimp asked, crouched at her side and looking at her with a slightly disgusted look on her face.

  “Peachy,” she said giving him a smile. She still had some in her teeth she knew.

  “That really is gross, Ice,” he said as he stood and started to walk up the hill.

  “Says the man who eats a whole goddamned lamb almost every other fucking day.”

  “It’s different,” he said defensively.

  “Yeah, different gross. All rare and”—she shuddered. She might have a questionable diet, but—“just yuck.”

  He just smiled and continued up the hill. She could sniff out the group now and she caught up to them slowly. No need to be a showoff. When she truly fed, she was pretty goddamned fast. Benefits of being Fae.

  “You good?” Nicky mouthed to her as she caught up and they stopped at the open field. Smart wolf.

  “Fine,” she said absentmindedly as she took in the scene in front of her.

  Only about a quarter of an acre, the field was all dead grass and fallen trees. Broken limbs, trees that had died and sprung into new trees from the remains.

  She looked around at the others. They didn’t speak. She knew it was in fear of what pain the barrier would bring. Their movements were distracting, though. “Everyone, stop,” she ordered. She didn’t bother looking to see if they would listen.

  She felt the force of the magic surrounding the scene and she smelled the rose blossoms. Goddamned Fae and their flowery fucking scents. The more powerful to draw unsuspecting humans and weaker Others into their trap. She looked around and found the temporal break that would have acted as the pathway between worlds for the Fae committing the killings.

  There was no steam coming from the puddle, so she let her eyes change to the bright green of her Fae ancestry and looked at the barrier that lay in front of her. She saw the edge of the magic, its blue, almost fiery tinge that reminded her so much of her own power, and she touched it. It bent to her will for a minute and then it bounced back, giving her a shock.

  “Fuck,” she said, wringing out the unwelcome sensation that radiated from her hand, all the way up her arm, and extended down her spine as she wriggled and curved her back this way and that to get rid of the awful feeling of fire ants crawling everywhere. She took a breath and refocused on the scene, lifting her hand again and calling on her Stone. She hadn’t used this side of herself in such a long time, and now, she’d used it three times in a week. And that side was settling in. She’d need to hide out for a good week to regenerate her shields of ice after this case was done and the Fae responsible was dead.

  Two bodies. Two distinct Other smells beyond the rose blossoms. The Fae had upped his or her game. And these bodies were in the town of Courtwood only just outside the outer limits of Montville. She stepped past the Fae shield and felt Danny and Gimp join her. She also felt someone else and she turned sharply to find Ginny in the circle with her.

  “How? You’re Clan.”

  “My mind’s a little different in case you didn’t notice.”

  “Your DNA isn’t.” Eire sniffed. “You’re full Skröm.”

  “Sure as fuck I am, Ice Ice Baby.” Ginny skipped toward the bits of blood and bone. If she stepped on any of it before they could get more of a read on the situation, Eire was going to kill her. “But, it’s not the DNA that is being stopped by the Fae’s force field. It’s the mind, chicka chicka boom boom,” Ginny cooed as she continued to skip. “And their minds reject the Fae power created from the Darkness. I’m already of the Darkness even more so than some.” She shrugged as she took one more hop backwards. She stopped quite literally an inch away from a full chunk of a hand. A small hand. A hand that Eire didn’t think had belonged to a full grown Other. Ginny looked down and Eire looked away.

  “Oh, sweetie,” Ginny whispered bending down. Eire turned back after getting herself together. “Eat lots of candy in the Underworld, girlie. Hades is a butt wipe, but he’s got a soft spot for the poor babies who come through too early.”

  “Leave it,” Eire said forcefully.

  Ginny stood slowly, putting her hands up and backing away slowly, dramatically. Jesus. Eire gave her a disgusted look and bent to examine the hand. Yes, a child’s. Shit.

  She made a mental note of the smells and the sites at the scene. There were the wolf pictograms again on the trees, and she motioned for Danny, who’d brought the compass, but he was already on top of things.

  “We were right, guys,” Danny yelled to the outer circle. He moved from pictogram to pictogram. “We’ve got pictograms at the North, South, East, and West corners.”

  “But why? The barrier isn’t needed,” Eire said thoughtfully as she leaned down to examine one of the pictograms, trying to assess why the Fae had used them.

  “A Fae who could devour would eat up all the power instantly, so why the showmanship? Why the four corners of trees? Why the pictograms?” Ginny asked from the spot where Eire had told her to leave the hand. Ginny bounced back and forth on her feet, eyes closed as she did whatever the fuck she was doing.

  Eire didn’t care.

  The woman was downright cool sometimes and a fucking psycho the other half of the time. It was really too bad that Gimp kept casting furtive glances toward the crazy woman as though he was more than interested in her. Clan and Others did not mix, no matter if she was Skröm or not. Shit, Skröm were worse than anyone, pretending they were better than the Others and all the while, they’d given themselves over to the Darkness. At least the Others hadn’t chosen the Dark. It had been thrust upon them, a lottery of birth.

  “It doesn’t make sense, Ice,” Gimp said. “The temporal breaks are how he’s getting in from fairy land and then back to this plane, so we understand that. The bits and pieces lack any sort of leftover power signature. We only know they’re Other because of the smell. So, we know their power was devoured. Everything adds up but these pictograms and the barrier. If he can devour, why the barrier?”

  “So,” Danny said coming back to the group. He’d been using his tracing paper to get rubbings of all the wolf carvings again. “We’ve got a Fae who devours, but for some reason needs a barrier and their particular barrier is made using pictograms, pictograms that we haven’t been able to find any source for?”

  They really needed to find out what the pictures of the wolves meant. They’d all been looking. Even Alexia’s father, James, who lived at the original Lodge and was a good six hours north of Montville, near the Vermont border in upstate New York, had joined in on the most boring part of her job. Eire would rather have been out in the field actually getting shit done than spending hours looking at dusty books.

  Gimp walked the inner part of the field, calling out any evidence he found and Danny, who was following close behind him, did the same.

  Danny had stopped at the edge of the clearing, talking with Nicky and she looked up in time to see the wall of magic fade. So, the murder had occurred yesterday around sundown. Fae magic only lasted in the In Betweens. Dawn had just hit. That meant the murder had been committed after dusk. Eire would have to check the calendars to see when sundown had happened last night.r />
  “You guys can come in now. The magic has dissipated,” Eire said and she saw Alexia scramble past the now non-existent barrier. Eire herself would have been crawling out of her skin wanting to get in as well, and she realized suddenly that the red-haired Counselor-in-training was less of a cool cucumber than her façade had let on. She didn’t like to sit out during a battle.

  “So, we’ve just got more questions again?” Devon asked as he placed himself once more at Alexia’s back. Eire had seen him do this often, take up a position that was as much protective as it was loving. He played it off by keeping the position relaxed and kissing her forehead, but he always looked around when he stood at her back. Always his animal. Always protecting. Bears didn’t let anyone fuck with what was theirs. She could appreciate the strength she saw there.

  “Always more questions,” Danny said from where he’d stayed standing at the edge of the clearing.

  “Why a child?” Alexia asked, red-rimmed eyes meeting Eire’s.

  Eire just shook her head, because she’d be hard-pressed to find her voice or any reason for this degree of violence.

  “So, two more dead Others who were devoured by a Fae who’s been traveling using a temporal break, but they put up a useless barrier of wolf pictograms and Fae magic?” Nicky’s gaze fell to the child’s hand that lay on the ground. “The perp has upped their game,” he said, looking around at the group as a whole. “We need help on this one.” His eyes met Eire’s and she saw the pain reflected there, so she did what she always did when emotions got too high…

  She walked away.

  “Gimp,” Eire said as she headed toward the edge of the clearing, “give my oldest brother a call. Have him get Zeke down here. We need someone else who knows their Fae shit on this case.” Nothing else they could do here. They’d call someone in to clean up the place. But the Others were quick to decompose and turn to ash. It was their nature.

  Dust to dust and all of that.