by M. J. Scott
I wished I could share his chill.
Or had any idea what happened to him to make him do this. When I first met him, he'd seemed the perfect model of the happy-to-be-here Righteous employee, full of enthusiasm for his job. And now he was a full-fledged criminal.
It had to have something to do with the demon or at least whoever was sending the imps.
But still, why Ajax? Because he'd moved to security? Had he been contaminated somehow by one of the beta testers? Had he moved to security already under the influence of whoever it was?
Ugh. There were too many possibilities, and I didn't have enough information. Never my favorite situation.
Which meant I had no choice but to sit and wait until we arrived at our destination, where hopefully there'd be some more light shed on what they wanted.
And hopefully I could figure out how the hell to get us out of this when it was.
I kept track of the time showing on the dashboard. Ten minutes. Then twenty. Then thirty. Forty. Fifty. Maybe closer to an hour since we'd first left Righteous. Enough time for us to get quite some distance from the center of the city, if not out of it altogether at this time of day. But also long past the time that we should have arrived at St. Isidore. Hopefully that meant people were now looking for us.
The thought was a small comfort. But in the face of Ajax’s continued lack of concern, it was hard to believe this was going to end well for me or Damon.
All I could do was hope like hell that Mitch could zero in on Damon's datapad. I took care not to draw any attention to my purse. Cassandra's book was in there, too, and I didn't necessarily want Ajax and who—or what—he may be working with getting hold of that either. Though maybe that was a silly thing to worry about when clearly at least one of the people he was working with knew enough magic to summon imps.
I had no idea what direction we were headed. Whatever the restraints were that were locking the truck in place in the semi's trailer, it kept us very stable, leaving me with only a faint sense of movement from the vibration transmitted through the floor. There were a few turns that were sharper where I had a fleeting impression that we were going left or right, but as for overall direction, no. I didn't even have a reliable sense of speed. We weren't coming to a halt very often, which made me think that maybe we were outside the city now.
The semi came to another halt, and then, to my surprise, the engine noise stopped.
Ajax, who'd spent the trip in silence, raised his gun once more. "All right, we're here. Don't try anything stupid. Ted is going to unload Damon, and then you and I will get out and walk down the ramp. You will remain in front of me. You will keep your hands in the air. If Ted sees you do anything else, then your boyfriend will be a permanent ex.”
"He's not my boyfriend," I said automatically.
"Fuck buddy, then," Ajax said, eyes narrowing. "Either way, I'm guessing you don't want him dead." He prodded me with the gun. "Or maybe you do. Killing people seems to be part of your MO."
What? "Is this about Nat? I—"
The gun prodded harder. "Don't talk about her," he hissed in one of the first real displays of emotion I'd seen from him.
Was this about her? Some crazed revenge plot? Had he been in love with her? They'd only known each other a short time. But people could fall fast. I knew that myself.
That unfortunate fact was the reason they were able to use Damon against me now. I was sure it was me they wanted rather than him. If they needed him, they wouldn't keep threatening to shoot him. Which meant they only really needed him to keep me in line.
Light bloomed around us, which I assumed meant the semi's doors were now open.
Well, whatever the hell was happening, I was about to find out what came next.
I swallowed hard, fighting back the knot of terror in my stomach and the catch in my breath as I listened to the sounds of Ted taking the stretcher out of the truck. I wanted to turn and look but wasn't going to risk aggravating Ajax until I had to.
"Out," he ordered with another jab of the gun.
The light made me squint as I walked down the ramp from the back of the semi. I didn't dare lower my hands to shield my eyes, so I just blinked furiously, hoping I wouldn't trip and fall.
By the time my vision started to clear, I realized that actually the light wasn't that bright—just one lone floodlight shining from above the door of a large two-story house, making the early morning light brighter than the gray and gloomy sky warranted, but not by much. There were no other houses close by, the sweep of drive where we stood edged by gardens that dissolved into groves of trees. They didn't look like orchards, so maybe this was private property?
The thud of the semi's trailer doors closing drew my attention back toward the house itself.
Expensive from the size of it. The sort of Mediterranean stucco-and-arch mansion that wasn't that unusual for California. There was a shimmer of wards crawling over the walls, a darker oil slick sheen than I was used to. Exactly the sort of color I was starting to associate with demon magic.
But at this point, that wasn't a surprise. If this was about me, it was about magic. If it was about Damon, we'd be sitting tied in a room somewhere while a ransom demand was sent. Of course, I had no way of knowing that one hadn't been, but I was the one free and Damon was leverage. Our positions would be reversed if they were after his money.
The air was cold after the warmth of the truck, one of those unusually sullen and cool summer days that the bay air currents can blow across the city. I shivered. One of the things in Cassandra's book had been how to draw warmth from the air, but I couldn’t afford to waste the energy. I had a feeling I was going to need all the magic I could muster to get us both out of here.
Ted started pushing the stretcher toward the house.
"Follow them," Ajax said from behind me, and I walked forward, happy to be moving away from the truck and Damon's datapad safely stowed in my bag still in its cabin. Until the semi's engine rumbled to life. I twisted my head and saw it headed back down the drive.
Fuck.
"Walk," Ajax said, scowling and gesturing with the gun. I faced the house. If Mitch was tracking Damon's datapad, they'd at least have this location as somewhere it had stopped for a few minutes. They'd check it out. They had to, didn't they?
God, I hoped so.
The front door swung open as Ted approached, and he pushed the stretcher through and vanished from sight. I wasn't quite close enough behind to see what lay inside, and I slowed, my instincts crawling at the sight of the darkened doorway. Whatever was in there, they weren't using any lights.
Blinds were pulled closed over all the windows, with no hint of light behind them. So I’d be struggling to see when I stepped across the threshold. The perfect time for someone—or something—to attack.
Great.
Walk blind into what might very well be a demon's den or balk and get shot for my trouble. Not a great choice.
But apparently I'd reached the point where my body had accepted that fear was now normal and ascended into a sort of cool blankness focused on just getting through each next step. I reached the doorway and slowed my pace again, trying to give my eyes a chance to adjust.
It wasn't quite as dark as I'd feared. There were points of dim light flickering in the distance, though I wasn't sure what they were. The stench of rot and decay, the smell of imps, surrounded me, and for a moment, I had to fight off dizzy nausea. But again, that cool focus reasserted itself, and I swallowed hard and walked forward.
I'd expected to step into some sort of foyer, but instead, the house seemed to only have one large room. As though someone had knocked down as many of the interior walls as was possible while still keeping the second floor from collapsing. The pieces of walls that remained cast weird shadows, and I tried not to think what might lurk behind any of them.
No movement caught my attention, but that didn't mean we were alone. There was a staircase over to the right, but I couldn't see what it led to.
; I followed Ted across the room, keeping an ear on what Ajax was doing. The front door closed with a final-sounding thud, and then footsteps echoed through the room, the floorboards and space making them too loud. I kept my eyes on Damon. There was nothing I could do if Ajax chose to shoot me in the back, but I might have a chance against a direct frontal attack.
Ted stopped halfway across the room. I kept walking, spine prickling. The wooden floor squeaked softly with every other step. Old. Hopefully not rotten. And thankfully, I could see no signs of circles painted onto the boards.
I knew circles could be used to amplify magic. But Cassandra's book hadn't given me any details on how. That was apparently above the skill level of magical newbies. I'd never seen Sara actually use a circle, though I knew she did. She never let me watch, but she'd certainly been happy for me to scrub the remains of any chalk or wax off the floor when she’d finished. I was happy there were none here. Whoever had brought me here didn’t need additional magical assistance.
I had almost reached the stretcher when Ajax said, "Stop."
I stopped. On the other side of the stretcher, Ted waited, hands clasped in front of his body, face arranged in the same sort of weirdly calm expression as Ajax’s.
A spike of fear broke through. This place stank of imps, and that smell was enough to scare any sane human. It was probably designed to scare sane humans.
Yet these two were acting like we were standing in the middle of the Riley Arts campus, where nothing could hurt them and the most likely source of danger was some tech geek on a hoverboard bowling them over.
I let my sight flip over to see Ted's aura, expecting it to have that same jittery quality as Damon's, but instead it was a heavy dark gray. Rather than glowing, it was a band of smoked darkness around him. His face, viewed through it, looked corpse white. And odd, as though he wasn’t quite real.
Right. Whatever was going on here, I didn't want Ted touching me. Something was definitely wrong with him. And he'd just cut Damon's wrist open. I almost stepped back but remembered Ajax.
My stomach rolled queasily. I swallowed. "Now what?"
Chapter Twenty-Five
"Now you wake him up, witch," said a voice that definitely wasn't Ajax's. It wasn't human at all.
I spun around, not caring about the gun.
The thing that stood next to Ajax wasn't an imp. At least I didn't think so. It looked more human than imp. Taller and less oddly bony. Not quite as human as the demon had looked though. It seemed unfinished somehow, the planes of its face and limbs wrong. As though someone had made the shape of a human with their eyes shut, then reached into their nightmares for ideas to finish it off.
"Well, witch?" it said. The words almost oozed and bubbled, as though there were too many teeth or tongues in its mouth. It made me feel like I was listening to something underwater.
"Why do you need him awake?"
It grinned then, and oh yes, there were definitely too many teeth. Gleaming black and spiked. Disconcerting against the almost human lips. Of course, any human with lips that shade of purplish gray would have been dead for quite some time.
A lesserkind, if I had to guess.
Damn it, I should have made Cassandra show me pictures of those as well as the imps. Though behind it stood an imp that looked remarkably like the one that had attacked us at my house. And several of its smaller friends, gleaming oily black, like the ones that’d first chased Damon and me through Dockside. From around me, chittering, rattling noises came from all angles, and more imps began to appear. I didn't waste time counting them. "A lot" was a near enough number. Too many for me to fry at once without a flamethrower.
"You are not here to ask questions," the lesserkind said.
"What am I here for?" I asked, stalling. Every second could be one second closer to help arriving. And I didn't think Ajax was going to shoot me for asking a question. Not without permission. Of course, the lesserkind probably didn't need to tell him to do it, it could probably just force him.
I snuck a peek at Ajax's aura. It swirled orange and yellow. Not jittery like Damon’s, just agitated. That was better than dead gray like Ted's, I supposed.
"Keep your magic for the man, witch," the lesserkind said. Its gaze slid to one side, toward Ted. "Edward, step back and give the witch room."
Edward. Not Ted. Why was that name familiar? I moved to the stretcher, trying to remember. I laid my hands on Damon, knowing I couldn't stall too long. Not if the lesserkind could tell when I was using my magic.
Edward. Edward.
Then it sprang into my brain. Edward Greenstone was the last Archangel beta tester released from the hospital. It had to be him, surely? Did that mean he'd been the worst affected? And how in the hell had the healers let him go if his aura looked like that? Maybe it hadn't? It seemed hard to believe. But if a lesserkind could serve a demon, surely it could also corrupt humans. When that corruption had happened was less important than how far under its control Ted was. If I had to guess, I’d have said all the way. Which meant I needed to think of him as an extension of the lesserkind at this point.
"Do not waste time, witch." The lesserkind sounded annoyed, the bubbling quality intensified.
I stared down at Damon. Should I wake him up? Could I wake him up might be more the question. I actually had no idea what I was doing. I'd put him to sleep, but that had been half panic. Was he safer asleep?
Probably not. They had me now. Maybe they didn't need him as leverage for much longer. In which case, I wanted him to have at least a chance of surviving this. If Mitch or the Cestis managed to find us, then awake, Damon might get out of here alive.
I closed my eyes and remembered what the book said. I needed to pull his energy field back up to where it should be.
Okay. So, if right now, my magic worked better when I was scared, then I would let myself be scared. Just for a minute. I opened my eyes and stared down at his face.
Let myself, just for a second, imagine what it would feel like if I never saw it again. If he never woke up. The fear that roared through me was torrential. I had to brace my knees to stay upright. But in its wake came a wave of fury.
No.
I wasn't having anything more taken from me. Not if I could help it. Not this man. Not my life.
Not without a fight.
I sent a pulse of power through Damon's aura, and his eyes snapped open, the blue unearthly bright in the weird half-light.
"Maggie?" he said.
"Stay still," I said. "We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy." He was a fan of retro culture, as Nat had been. A weird trait in people who embraced the future and technology so enthusiastically, but there it was. I hoped he knew the reference.
He frowned but didn't ask anything else.
"Step back, witch," the lesserkind said. "Edward, untie him."
That made me scared all over again. Why was he happy to have Damon loose? Two humans against all of them wasn't great odds, but it was better than one. Unless it was counting Damon as being on his side. Another weapon. One who might just willingly put his hands around my throat again.
I stepped back, suddenly wary, angling my body so I could see the lesserkind, Damon, Ted, and Ajax. If Damon was under their control somehow, then it was three humans against one. That was without counting the lesserkind and its imp army.
In other words, I was screwed.
Ted released Damon, who sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the stretcher. Ted pulled a set of navy scrubs out of a bag tucked underneath and shoved them toward Damon. "Put those on."
Damon obeyed, face expressionless. That didn't ease my nerves. If you wanted to keep a human off balance, then keeping them mostly naked was a good tool. Giving him clothes gave him security. Did that mean they thought they had him under control?
While they were all distracted watching Damon dress, I risked a quick glance at his aura. Still full of static.
And maybe, just maybe I could see a thread of energy extending out from his chest, t
he faintest glimmer of blue twisting in the air. But I couldn't turn to see exactly where it went. Not yet. I cut my power before the lesserkind could notice what I was doing and concentrated on Damon. If he came for me, then I would try to knock him out again. It was my only option.
"Now, witch," the lesserkind said. "Look at me."
I turned reluctantly. Demons could take over a human through sheer willpower if there was an opening. Could lesserkind do the same? I tried to remember what Cassandra had taught me about shields once upon a time. Something about pushing power out to strengthen your aura. It was worth a shot. I stared at the lesserkind, visualizing my aura turning solid. Nothing felt any different, but it snarled.
"Do you think that will save you?" it asked.
"Do you think your power will save you?" I spat back. "What do you want?"
"You hurt my master. You hurt us," it hissed. "We have slept, but we are awake now.
I hoped by “we” the thing meant it and its imps, not it and the demon. If the demon was already trying to find a way back to our dimension, then we had a bigger problem.
"So you took a nap." I tried to sound unconcerned. "If you were hoping for some beauty sleep, it doesn't seem to have worked."
It hissed at me. "Vanity is a human thing, witch."
Yeah, I didn't think so. The demons and their kind might be ugly, but they wanted to claim our world. That took ambition and greed, and vanity was an emotion wrapped up in that family.
"Edward doesn't look too hot either," I said. "What the hell have you done to him? Judging by his aura, he should be dead."
The lesserkind laughed. "He is useful but weak. He escaped us once. Now he is returned to us. His emotions twisted him. When the humans set him free, his despair called. And I found him again."
Found him and did what exactly? Drained his energy somehow to bolster whatever it was the lesserkind lost when I sent his boss back to the netherworld? That would explain the dullness of Edward's aura and his lack of independent action.