Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2)

by Morgan Blayde

  Vivian shot in after them, leaving me as the only one playing catch up. I could have used the tats on my legs to give myself vampire speed, but I was saving that. This piece of magic came with a time-delayed penalty of debilitating cramps, so I used it sparingly.

  I followed the rail tracks to the half-melted fence and went in, keeping low, dodging to the right to get at least one line of railroad cars between me and the assassin. I wanted to be on her without her seeing me coming. The area was gloomy with little green fires putting out a dull sort of light. Shadows jerked, matching the dance of flames. The air thickened with the stink of smoke. Coming up on an engine, I paused and muffled a cough.

  From some distance away, I heard the assassin calling, “Don’t think I’m going to make your death easy, Caine. You’re going to see all you love and cherish destroyed before your turn comes.”

  Okay, a killer and a bitch, but the gods will weep for you if you touch my gold.

  A wall of green fire chased Vivian around the engine, forcing her to take shelter a few feet from me. She glared my way, slapping green fire on the edge of her sleeve. “I just knew all this was your fault.” The fire resisted smothering. She shed the coat before the flame got to her arm. “Damn, I liked that duster.”

  “Where is she,” I hissed.

  “On top of the next train over.”

  “Where’s Josh?”

  “Got no idea. He asked me to buy him a little time. Said he had a plan.”

  I focused my senses. They were better than human now; I’d make them work for me. Vivian started to say something else. I held up a hand to stop her. For all we knew, the assassin might have preternatural senses as well. I heard my pulse in my ears. Tuning out the sound, I heard Vivian’s heartbeat, slow and strong. The crackle of flames came from a dozen places. Green light made the smoke a miasma of evil, defying vision. A scrape of sound made me look up into the rafters, where a false ceiling of steel mesh prevented bats from nesting. I saw a huge shadow-shape clinging to the mesh, tearing at it.

  I’d fished with a net on numerous occasions, so it wasn’t much of a leap to figure out what the liger was doing up there. Unfortunately, the ripping steel was betraying his intentions. A blast of fire shot up around him. Josh dropped and slammed to the floor with an explosive grunt.

  Figuring the assassin was distracted with him, I bolted past Vivian, grabbing her arm, tugging her along as I rounded the plow-like cow-catcher on the locomotive. I saw the assassin on top of the other train, a stocky female shape wreathed in green fire. I snapped off a full clip into her back and ass. She jerked, crying out softly, biting off a curse. Instead of penetrating, my slugs splashed over her, and dripped down her body like quicksilver.

  Recovering her balance, crouching, she turned my way, eyes blazing with yellow-green light, her smile a hard rictus of pain and pleasure. A shaft of green fire speared off her hand, but went for Vivian, not me. The assassin called down at me, “Watch me roast the flesh from her bones, and suck the marrow out. That’s the best part, you know?”

  I shifted my stance and saw Vivian back-flip away faster than a human can run. No one was ever going to find it easy to take her down. Looking back again, I saw the assassin sweep her arm toward where Josh had fallen.

  But he was on his feet and leaping for the loose dangle of steel netting above. His massive claws snagged it and he wrenched hard as he fell again, using his weight, about a thousand pounds, to tear a long strip of mesh free. He landed and tossed the mesh at the assassin. She met it with a sheet of fire that turned the mesh into a drizzle of molten steel. The sheet of fire blocked her view of Josh, but I could see him leaping onto the side of her train, running on it with all of his claws digging in for support.

  I needed to get the bitch’s attention back on me, giving Josh his shot. I warmed up my Dragon Fire tat, a sensation not unlike being clubbed down by a wrecking ball. Fortunately, these payments for magic were more ghosts in the brain than actual damage. If I’d been a real dragon, there would have been no such cost attached.

  Dropping my shield to attack could get me killed. I had to depend on her cruelty in not wanting to end me before I’d suffered enough.

  The red pearl I wore heated up, the Red Lady’s way of letting me know how much she hated my plan. Her gift, the obsidian bottle, popped into my hand, a tempting distraction.

  I threw the bottle at the assassin, and followed it up with a blast of dragon fire. I expected the woman’s green flame to vaporize the bottle, liquor and all. I didn’t expect the black bottle to blur through the green fire unscathed, only to break across her face, cutting deep. The liquid inside washed over her, dampening her torso, displacing green fire, making her vulnerable to the unnatural heat of my dragon fire. She screamed and covered her face as my fire smashed into her, toppling her backwards. She fell from sight on the far side of the train.

  The heavy smoke—no longer thinned by my shield—burned my throat, making me cough. Sweat dampened my clothes, dripping down my face. I’d never felt a flame this hot, not even my dragon flame.

  Recovering, I heard her voice ringing with strength, despite her pain. “Mishi-makwa, help me!”

  A moment later, a pyre of green fire roared up from behind the train. Josh was on top now, in position to look over, but he pulled back, turning his face away. The inner wall of the depot behind the assassin was burning heavily. The whole place was going up quickly. And through the clogging smoke and green glare, a great white shadow rose, a sixteen-foot beast with red eyes. It opened its jaws, baring seven-inch fangs as it roared a challenge. Then the pyre was tamed, clinging to its fur coat like a lover. And it was running.

  Another coughing fit doubled me over. It was hard to see, but the woman was probably riding the beast, protecting it from her own fire as they made their getaway. I made a mental estimate. About thirty-six hundred pounds, maybe more. I’m not sure we’re prepared to catch up with that thing. Her partner’s even bigger than the liger. We need a damn rocket launcher.

  It ran through another black iron fence, melting a hole, turning toward the river. I heard Vivian scream, and realized that it had battered her out of the way, and she was burning.

  I ran flat out toward her, willing to let the enemy get away, for now.

  Josh surged past me, getting there first. He used his great furry mass to smother her, crushing out the flames. Even unnatural fire needed oxygen to burn. A human would have been killed by it all. As a dhampyr, Vivian might survive, but she was going to be hurt—bad.

  We were outside in an area lit by streetlights. The depot behind us was a total write-off, the green fire now burning an ordinary orange. The air was filling with the wail of fire and police sirens. Josh rolled over, shedding burnt fur, slowly, painfully reverting to human form. Vivian’s hair was badly seared. She had a burn on the side of her face. Her top had caught monstrous claws, getting burned and shredded at once like some of the flesh underneath. Fat curls of smoke wound up from her torso. She groaned in pain, grimacing, hissing as she clutched her wound.

  I threw my coat to Josh. He tied it on to cover his privates, a wrap that only exposed the outside of one leg. “I’ll get the car. The dhampyrs will know best how to treat this.” He sprinted away.

  I knelt by Vivian, and stretched out over her, keeping my weight off her, and activated my Demon Wings tats. The cost of the magic was a crisp, soul-curdling pain that sloshed through me like acid. The pain receded and I knew we were both cloaked from perception. Eyes would turn away, seeing nothing. Anyone about to step on us would find themselves turning suddenly away with no reason. I watched Vivian’s face, seeing her pale-faced agony on display. I listened to her shallow gasps of breath. People think I’m a monster who enjoys the pain of others. Normally, that’s true.

  Even now…

  Smelling the iron of blood, I looked down at her hands, and saw her own blood soaked them. She said, “Don’t … worry. Bleeding will stop … soon.”

  That wasn’t the problem. I c
ould tell the smell strained her self-control, making her hungry, lengthening her fangs, deepening her eyes to a glowing pink that bordered on red. She stared at my neck with great interest.

  SIXTEEN

  What’s a little blood between friends?

  —Caine Deathwalker

  Fire trucks screamed closer, followed by police cruisers. Red and blue lights strobed in the twilight. This back corner area had been deserted by the tourists, but at the commotion, a lot of people were drifting over from the cafes, stores, and riverboat docks. As firemen unloaded their gear, Josh returned. A policeman stopped him from getting too close, and launched into pointed questions on why he was mostly naked behind the wheel of the black sedan I’d borrowed from Mason.

  I knew it hurt Vivian to be picked up, rolled against my chest, and carried, but she made a muffled growl and stayed silent after that, biting her lip. All Slayers were like that, heroically stoic. Me, I’d have been screaming for hard drugs. I carried her to the car, trusting my demon-wings tat to keep the cop from noticing me, Vivian, and the back car door opening by itself. I stowed her in the back seat, slammed the door, and went around to get in the front passenger door.

  Halfway through his tirade on public indecency, the cop broke off, his stare finding Vivian in the back seat, looking like death warmed over a time or two. The cop went for his gun.

  I extended more energy into my magic, draining my lifeforce perilously.

  The cop looked dazed, staring about like he’d lost something, and forgotten just what it was. In a distracted fog, the cop returned to the fire. We skirted the fire trucks and shot down Front Street, passing another railroad station, this one painted with the false-fronts of old time stores. We passed the docks with the two paddle-wheel boats, then turned left down a side street. At the edge of Old Sac, we drove down into a tunnel, entering downtown Sacramento at the backside of the K Street Mall. We circled around to get to K Street, slowing for oblivious pedestrians. Getting onto K Street, I dropped my stealth magic. People pointed at the car that had just materialized in front of them.

  “People need to get a life,” I said, as Josh floored the pedal.

  We reached the Darth Vader building. Josh parked us on the sidewalk, near the front doors, telling me, “Back in a minute.” He left the engine running, bailing out of the driver’s door.

  I turned in the seat to see how Vivian was holding up. She’d pulled herself forward. Her black hair was plastered along her face, her head poking between the front seats. Her clammy skin looked mostly white, with the faintest tinge of pale green—as if some lethal element from the assassin’s green fire had poisoned her body. Her eyes burned electric pink, dangerously alive with surfacing hunger. She reached and her nails dug into my shoulder.

  But my protective shield didn’t activate. Vivian still had control. I was impressed.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Take some blood if you need it to heal.”

  She shuddered. “No. This far gone, I’m not going to be able to stop myself from draining you dry.”

  “Then I’ll stop you when I need to.”

  Her eyes dimmed, turning their normal black as the human in her struggled up. “Can you?”

  I smiled with reckless abandon. “Sure.”

  “Okay, then…” She shoved herself back, dragging me halfway into the backseat. I lay awkwardly in her arms. Her mouth opened wide and her white fangs lengthened. Her mouth lunged. Teeth buried themselves in my neck—painful and erotic as well.

  The teeth pulled out and her mouth closed on the wounds, her tongue slathering across the punctures. That part wasn’t so bad. A little euphoria set in. Like vamps, dhampyr saliva contained a chemical high that tended to take some of the fight out of their victims. It was too bad she couldn’t use it to tone down her own pain. I could tell she was getting into the feeding by the hand she used to squeeze my ass.

  Damn. This was definitely a new side to Vivian. Unfortunately, it was a side inherited from her vampire father, whoever that had been. I knew when the emergency passed, she’d be mortified by this memory. If I was a better person, I’d never bring it up again with her. Too bad I wasn’t a better person.

  “Okay,” I told her, “that’s enough. You need to stop, right now.”

  She kept on, slurping my blood like a starving predator.

  “I hate to do this,” I said, “but if you don’t stop now, I’m going to punch you in those damaged ribs.”

  She ignored me.

  I punched her.

  She jerked, face getting whiter, if that were possible, hissing, eyes closing in agony.

  I squirmed into the back seat, pulled out a PPK, and thumbed off the safety. If I had to fire, I’d try to hit something not too vital.

  My blood dribbled from the corner of her gaping mouth, dripping onto her naked breasts. Her eyes opened. Her pink irises were now red rimmed and the pupils were tiny little slits. She looked so hot.

  I put my muzzle right between her eyes, making a threat that I thought might back her off. “You know I will.”

  “Bastard!”

  The red rim faded from her eyes. The pink darkened to black. An angry black.

  “Are we done here?” I asked.

  “We are so done!” she gritted out the words. “We are beyond done. We are forever done.”

  “Good.” I thought about making some joke about getting a rabies shot, but my sense of self-preservation kicked in just in time, for once.

  “Just one more thing.” I holstered my weapon, and pulled her face to mine, kissing her hard. She resisted maybe half a second, then kissed me back with withering passion.

  The backseat doors jerked open. I was pulled away from Vivian by black-suited dhampyrs, and dumped on the sidewalk like an empty bag of blood. The dhampyr entered the vehicle from both sides, gently easing Vivian out. She still had that slightly greenish cast to her face. Worry gnawed on me as they carried her into the building lobby. I followed, but was stopped at the security desk inside.

  A six-foot guard with black sunshades, hair, and goatee stepped into my path. He said, “We’ll take it from here. We know what to do.”

  “I doubt that,” I said. “She was burnt by a preternatural. Poisoned, maybe, by its fire.”

  “We have fey healers that service our community. Since she’s not dead yet, she’ll probably be all right.”

  “I’m going with her.”

  The guard shook his head no. “Mr. Mason is coming down. He asked for you to wait. He has questions.”

  I considered ripping the guard’s head off, for presuming to give me orders, but remembered Old Man expected me to show diplomatic skills on this mission. So I glowered, graciously. “You want me to wait here? Where are your manners?”

  He smiled like he meant nothing by it. “This way, please. Can I get you some coffee to swill? Maybe some orange juice and a cookie?”

  I pulled out my gun, shot him in the knee, a wrist, then the other knee, and walked off. “I don’t think I like your tone.”

  He hobbled on one leg, dragging the other, cursing with great feeling as the bloody knee spat out the bullet, healing quickly.

  Spurred by the gunfire, another dhampyr guard lunged over.

  I tracked him with my gun, as he slowed, not wanting to startle me into taking another shot. He gestured toward a bank of elevators, his voice mellow and soothing, “I’ll take you to a conference room where you can relax and wind down. I imagine you’re still feeling the stress of combat. I’ll have some refreshments—”

  “White wine,” I said, “and send Mason straight to me when he gets here. I don’t like to wait.”

  “Yes, Sir, I’ll see to it.”

  Giving my brain a rest, I quieted my thoughts, riding the elevator up several floors as insipid elevator music played. I allowed myself to be guided down a hall with cream colored carpet to a pale blue door. The glass was frosted.

  My guide opened the door and ushered me in. Another boardroom. I was really seeing too many of
them lately. The table was cherry wood. The high-backed chairs were black lacquer. There were no windows looking out. I went to the side of the room where a dove gray couch kept company with a green glass coffee table. Magazines were spread out. Forbes, Money, Time, and the Wall Street Journal. I flopped on the couch and looked at the dhampyr. “What?” I said. “No Soldier of Fortune? What about Guns and Ammo?”

  He half smiled, backing to the door. “I’ll see what I can do, Ambassador Caine.”

  Ambassador Caine, I like that. About time I started getting some respect from these guys.

  I put my feet up, my head back, and stared at the ceiling tiles. They were the kind with dots in them. After a while, my mind connected the dots. I began to see faces. Big, fanged, bestial faces. Monster faces. What was that name the assassin had used? What had answered her? I sighed. I should have paid more attention at the time.

  The door opened and Josh walked in. His blond hair was wet from a shower. He wore a borrowed black suit—that was tight on him—with black glasses hiding his eyes. I wouldn’t have known him except he was oversized even for dhampyr muscle, and there was his smell. My heightened senses had been dialed way low, stunned since the burning building. They were apparently back now because I could smell the liger from across the room. Not an unpleasant scent, just not human.

  “Where you been?” I asked.

  “It’s surprising the places you can aimlessly wander into when you look like you belong. They’ve got Vivian on the top floor. She’s comfortable, and a healer’s on the way.”

  Something deep inside unclenched a little, which was ridiculous since Vivian was only a piece of ass to me, and a dependable soldier in most situations. I’m a demon lord, fer Christ’s sake. I use people. I don’t get attached. Bad for business.

  My stomach rumbled. I’d used a lot of energy burning magic. Normal cloaking magic is draining. I’d expanded my output to conceal a whole car for minutes. Fatigue set in along with hunger.

  “Don’t worry.” Josh sauntered across the room, snagging a chair from the table as he went by. He pulled the chair over to the couch. “I’ve sent some of the boys off for some Chinese take-out. It should be here soon.”