Carpe Demon (Carus #3)

by J. C. McKenzie

  Tristan stared at his hands. His dark brows pulled down, making his angelic face appear more severe and stern. What was he thinking? He seemed to understand, but that didn’t mean he was okay with me dancing naked for a Demon. If he couldn’t accept this, he’d never get past the rest of my history. And if Tristan, the most level-headed Alpha I knew in existence, couldn’t come to terms with my Demon bargain, I had no chance Wick would.

  Fear of losing Tristan wiped away any lingering dread I harbored after learning about Bola. I waited as Tristan seemed to collect his thoughts. The air hung heavy between us. Please, please, please, be okay with it.

  Finally, he looked up, sapphire eyes burning intense holes into mine. “You have a past, Andy. Me, too. We’ve both done things, things I’m sure neither of us like, nor are proud of, but that’s what makes us what and who we are today, makes us stronger. Do I want you to do it again? No. But if it will save your life? Yes. Absolutely.” He clutched my hands in both of his.

  Wow. Just…wow.

  “Uh.” My intelligent response tumbled out of my mouth as I fought breathlessness I’d never experienced before. Butterflies danced the Macarena in my stomach.

  “Besides, I’m a Were, you’re a Shifter. Naked is natural. What I don’t like is he fed off your sexual energy.” He leaned in and trailed his fingers down my arm before kissing a path along my collarbone. “If anyone is going to feed off you, it should be me.”

  Oh boy! The incinerator in my core kicked up a notch. I mentally fanned my face.

  “Thank you? That’s incredibly insightful. And understanding.”

  “I’ve been around awhile.” Tristan winked.

  “And exactly how long is that?” Weres and Shifters practically stopped aging at thirty. So if a Shifter looked old, he or she was really, really ancient. Tristan looked around thirty-five, so realistically he could be anywhere from thirty-five to a couple hundred years old.

  “Not telling. It will scare you away.”

  Probably a couple hundred then, at least. I was almost eighty. He’d probably seen and done a lot. How long was he under Ethan’s control? How many awful things did he have to participate in?

  I looked into his blue gaze before my conscience started to crush me, and I had to glance away. I’d have to be as understanding as him. Two-way street. We both had skeletons. Looking at the creases between Tristan’s eyebrows and the knowing look behind his smooth seduction and laughter, I suspected Tristan had a shadier past than me.

  He’d killed my handler. Ordered by his Vampire Master, Ethan, Tristan had no choice. What else had he been ordered to do?

  My scalp prickled as if new hair shot out of my head.

  Then another thought crushed me. Did I even have time to spend on Tristan or Wick right now? I needed to find big, bad Bola and put him down like a rabid dog. I shouldn’t be holding hands with a hot guy in my living room or digging my nose into Tristan’s personal history.

  My head started to pound, and my body sagged with an unseen weight.

  Tristan stood up and drew me with him. Thoughts of the Demon flew from my mind again. Running his fingers down my face in a gentle caress, Tristan stared intently in my eyes, his sapphire gaze glowing with intensity. He clasped both my hands in his and leaned forward to press his lips against mine. “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For trusting me. For telling me some of your past. I know it wasn’t easy, but I hope…” His voice trailed off, and his gaze cast down to the side while his fingers tightened on mine.

  I squeezed his hand and waited.

  “I hope we can trust each other more. Unearth all our secrets. I know yours aren’t all roses and daffodils, and I hope you understand mine aren’t either.” He returned my hand squeeze. “But I want no secrets between us. If you…If you choose me, that is.”

  He dropped my hands, pecked me on the cheek, walked out of the living room, down the hall and let himself out, quietly shutting the door behind him.

  I remained standing, right where I was when he last touched me, my feet growing roots into the rug. No secrets? He wanted to know everything? And tell me everything? He’d said something like that once before. He must really mean it. Could he handle the truth?

  Could I?

  Then something weird happened. A jolt in my body led to a flutter in my belly and a tingle in my limbs.

  Hope.

  Chapter Ten

  “I figure if I’m gonna be a mess I might as well be a hot mess.”

  ~Mindy, The Mindy Project

  The hope tingling through my veins from Tristan’s visit quickly faded from my body as guilt took over, again. Guilt for my attraction to Tristan when I also wanted Wick, guilt that I’d spent an hour getting closer to the Wereleopard Alpha instead of researching the Demon, and guilt for taking an emotional hiatus from my current problems.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket and jerked me out of my head. I fished it out to find a text from Mel, one of my few girlfriends and a fellow survivor of Dylan’s pack. I tapped the screen and entered my password to read her message.

  I’m thinking about getting banged, she wrote.

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. After the high stress of telling Tristan part of my sordid past, the eggshell gently encasing my sanity cracked. Oh no! I slapped a hand over my mouth, but the giggles kept coming, tumbling around my hand. Mel and I, and most supes over the age of fifty, found the constant revolving door of new technology difficult to keep up with. Autocorrect was a bitch, and both Mel and I had declared war on her, having lost many battles already. Currently, I held second place, having told Wick I planned to pick up cocaine instead of coffee and asking Clint to “watch” instead of “wait” when I planned to take a shower.

  But Mel? She took first place. She’d asked me to get penis instead of pedis and to go crotch shopping with her instead of shopping for clutches. Wick came in at a distant third, I suspected he proofread.

  Getting banged? Yup. Mel was a victim, again, and clearly winning the race.

  Did you want help…or? I replied and then waited.

  OMG! I meant bangs! My hair…getting bangs!

  I twirled my bangs around my finger before texting back. Well crap! I was on my way over. I laughed again. Mel knew I didn’t swing that way.

  Do you think they still sell flip phones? I want my old one back, she lamented.

  Suck it up, buttercup. I think both bangs and getting banged will look good on you.

  Sometimes you can be a real bitch, she texted.

  I’m being nice!

  Whatever. I have a hair appointment tomorrow. Want to meet me after and go for coffee? 3pm…ish?

  Sure. I might have a Demon to hunt down and destroy, but I needed my friendship with Mel as well, for my sanity, for my recuperation. Besides, I had to tell her about Bola. I wasn’t the only one to suffer from his attention in Dylan’s pack. She had the right to know. I just had to figure out a way to break it to her gently. Where’s your hair appointment?

  Lola’s.

  Of course. I should’ve known. Lola’s, an expensive and exclusive hair salon in the West End, catered to the very trendy and very wealthy citizens of Vancouver. Clint had once booked an appointment for me there. Anticipating I’d fail to meet Lucien’s demands and Clint would get me as a toy, Clint’s first plan as my owner had been to send me in for a dye job. He liked blondes.

  With jet-black hair, gray eyes and ethnically ambiguous skin tone, it wouldn’t have worked. Me and a blonde bob? Not a good idea.

  My phoned rang. Stan. I hit the “Accept” button and brought the phone up. The screen heated against my ear and warmed my palm. The summer sun streamed through the blinds as I flopped butt-first onto my plush sofa and braced for the Stan-tirade.

  “Andy.” Stan’s cop voice cracked the air waves. “You’ve been avoiding my calls.”

  Crap! When did he call? I tugged at my shirt collar, suddenly feeling a bit hot. Then I remembered smacking my phone a coup
le of times before I drifted to sleep last night. Well, this morning, technically. It must’ve been Stan. Oops. “Have not. I’ve been busy.” Liar, liar…

  Silence. Then, “I know what busy means, Andy.”

  “Oh? What’s that?” I leaned back on the couch and rested my head on a cushion.

  “Whenever my wife says she’s busy, she really means she’s going to stay home, sit on the couch bra-less and watch television.”

  The mental image of a female Stan doing what Stan described flashed through my brain and burnt a number of brain cells. No logic. Stan’s wife probably looked nothing like him, but I’d never met her, and my brain needed a face. Now, I wasn’t too sure I wanted to meet her.

  “Yeah, I think we have a different definition,” I said. “So did I pass your sergeant’s little test the other night? He didn’t seem too impressed.”

  “On the contrary. He congratulated me on my initiative for roping in a supe for assessing crime scenes.”

  “Roping in?” My left fist twitched.

  “His words.”

  “Better be,” I grumbled. “So why are you calling? Got another crime scene?”

  “More than one. Don’t you watch the news?”

  “Not after they lumped me in a group they dubbed ‘the killing trio.’ ”

  “We have a problem.” Stan’s voice took a tired edge, or maybe I just noticed it now. The crime scene like the one we’d been to would rattle even the most seasoned veteran. “The number of murders and violent crimes has increased one hundredfold in the last two days. One hundred, Andy! The politicians are getting involved. And that never works out well for anyone. They’re calling it an epidemic, like it’s some sort of fucking disease. They’re questioning the professionalism of the entire force and demanding results.”

  He took a deep breath and continued. “The media’s eating it up, and now we have reporters sticking their microphones up our noses while politicians stick it to us up the…well, you know what I mean. As if we’re not working hard enough as it is.”

  “Stupid polis.” I used the derogatory police term for politicians, not only because Stan and I were buds, but because he should know how hip I could be. I’d never heard Stan talk for so long. He was more of a grunter.

  “Yeah,” he muttered.

  “Similar crime scenes to the one I sniffed out for you?” My stomach rolled at the thought. I clutched my belly. I might be a seasoned assassin and desensitized to violence compared to the average person, but these crime scenes were different. My brain started to throb behind my eyes.

  “The scenes are similar,” Stan confirmed. “But we have a different description. It’s not a dog with wings, or any Demon for that matter. Half of the crime scenes were just pandemonium. Norms killing other norms by any means necessary for no apparent reason. No Demon present for any of them that we can tell, but we have linked the incidences to one consistent element using security cameras. Shows up about five minutes before all hell breaks loose. Pun not intended.”

  “What is it?” I asked when Stan’s nanosecond pause threatened to kill me with anticipation.

  “A man.”

  “A man?” I pinched the bridge of my nose, but the pain behind my eyes continued to spread out.

  “Just a man.”

  “No other description? That’s not much to go on.” How the hell did the VPD expect me to sniff out one man in a massacre crime scene?

  “Caucasian male. Five ten to six two. Average build. Light brown or dark blond hair. Wearing a black hoody and fitted blue jeans. No eye colour reported. No one got close enough to see and survive. Might’ve been wearing sunglasses.”

  “So average white guy? Again, not much to go on.” I dropped my head on the couch as I thought about it. The pain lancing through my brain cells behind my eyes dissipated as a thought came to me. “Could still be the Demon.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ve identified the Demon involved in your first crime scene. He goes by the name of Bola. We have…history. He can possess anyone willing.”

  “Why would anyone willingly allow a demon to possess them?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Will you be able to tell?”

  “Maybe. Even with a human hosting the Demon, the area could potentially contain the Demon’s scent. At least according to the references I’ve checked. In the past, this Demon masked his stench when in possession of a Werewolf, which is not a typical occurrence among Demon kind. He has a special skill. We’ll have to hope he didn’t care enough to hide his scent this time.” My heart hammered against my ribcage. The idea of going to another slaughter caused by Bola made the acid in my stomach bubble up my throat. My mouth dried out.

  Stan needed me. I knew Bola, all too well.

  “Can you come and sniff out one of the crime scenes?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Yes, Stan needed me, but I also needed to relay the Bola information directly to Lucien before he got torture-happy and mutilated Wick. I wasn’t taking chances with a simple text or phone call. Not when he refused to release me from a previous debt due to a similar technicality.

  I glanced at my watch. Still four hours until sunset. My breathing evened out, and my muscles relaxed. Plenty of time to get to the crime scene and assess it before my little “date” with Lucien. “I’ll meet you there in wolf form and when I’m done, I’ll call you with the information. Just tell your men not to shoot the wolf, okay?”

  He hesitated. “Meet me in Chinatown.”

  The jerk hung up before I could ask where in Chinatown he wanted to meet.

  ****

  When I arrived at Keefer and Main, in the heart of Chinatown, I knew exactly why Stan didn’t need to give further directions. Chinatown, normally decorated with vibrant reds and golds to my falcon’s sharp eyes, now looked drenched and stained in the dark colour of thick, clotted blood. It coated the walls, sliding down in clumps of matter. Internal organs squashed like road kill. Lifeless, limp bodies and various body parts lay strewn across the sidewalks and roads. A few of those parts lay across doorways or through broken glass, as if running to escape the horror.

  Thank Feradea I’d left Red at home.

  When I landed in one of the alleys and shifted into my wolf form, my senses were flooded with new information. Bola’s Demon scent punched my nose, over and over again, with each drag of air. Without a doubt, the Demon from my nightmares had been here.

  A growl ripped from my throat. The thick fur along my back rippled, and I made my way out of the alley to find the VPD.

  Officer Stan and Sergeant Lafleur stood at the end of a particularly bloody pool, their faces closed off, but their scents screamed outrage and fear.

  Underneath the acrid blood and cloy of sweet sweat, something familiar niggled at my brain. Something other than Bola’s cruel Demon scent, something other than death. Something…argh! I lost it. I clawed the ground to stir up more scents, but the nagging smell slipped away, feather light in the wind.

  I sniffed around the mangled and burnt body parts, more to ensure due diligence than out of necessity. Scouring the gruesome crime scene didn’t yield anything more than what I figured out in the first two minutes. Bola had struck again.

  Trotting across the intersection, I skirted as much of the evidence as possible and made my way over to Stan.

  Lafleur saw me first.

  He stiffened. Then he reached for his gun.

  I froze, one paw off the concrete. Escape route. Where? My gaze darted back and forth. I was in the middle of an intersection. The white crime scene van twenty feet to my right was the closest cover, and if the sergeant had a decent shot, he’d peg me well before I made it.

  Stan looked over at his sergeant before following his gaze. Stan’s steely cop stare met mine, and his shoulders dropped. He placed his hand over Lafleur’s and stopped him from drawing.

  I relaxed and set my paw down.

  Leaning in, Stan whispered into Lafleur’s ear. At this distance, Stan�
��s words weren’t discernable with all the other officers and investigators milling around, but Lafleur’s hand dropped from his holstered firearm. I continued forward and closed the distance. The immediate threat of death by firing squad might’ve been over, but Lafleur remained stiff. So I remained wary.

  What was his problem? He’d seen me in wolf form before.

  Hopping over a decapitated body of a young man nailed it home for me. A crime scene like this would make even the staunchest veteran tense, and a bit trigger happy. Especially a norm. Super powerful supes freaked me out, and I had an advantage. If I was a norm…I’d pack semiautomatics everywhere.

  “Did you get what you need?” Stan asked me when I reached him.

  I slowly nodded my head like a good little dog.

  “And you’ll phone me?”

  I nodded again.

  “What if she’s the one doing this?” Lafleur snapped.

  My head snapped in his direction. With my teeth barred, a low growl escaped my throat. I took a step toward the sergeant.

  A blast sounded almost instantaneously when something like a sledgehammer exploded into my hindquarters. Fuck! I yelped and spun away. Pain lanced through my body, followed by numbness. A police officer sighted me over his handgun from across the intersection. His eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward.

  I hopped behind Stan and Lafleur, both barking out orders. My heartbeat thudded in my ears, the numbness faded, and shooting pains ran down my hind legs. Not waiting to find out who won that argument, I scanned the area quickly and hobbled to the nearest alley. I didn’t need an entire police department using me as target practice, or as a supernatural scapegoat. Scapewolf? Whatever.

  As soon as I rounded the corner I willed the change, and beat my wings hard to take off. Landing might hurt, but flying didn’t require the use of my legs or butt.

  Why are you hurt? Lucien demanded as I soared in the wind streams, trying to shake the ache. Damn that Master Vampire mind-link thing.