Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2)

by Morgan Blayde

  Mason? But it was a woman I saw running from the White Lotus. Or was that a dream too?

  The dream stone glowed brighter and brighter. Other Masons rose from the mats, features blurry and smudged, toner on their cheeks like they were bad copies. They turned from me and walked away. Each Mason copy had a knife in the back from the little zombie children. The kids followed the Masons. A moment later, I lay alone on blood splattered mats. Vivian and Gloria had vanished.

  But I heard Vivian’s voice, “You need to wake up. Wake up, Caine.”

  * * *

  I opened my eyes in the spare bedroom in Joshua house. Vivian was shaking me. Osamu stood by a window, talking on his phone, probably to Old Man back in L.A. Joshua jutted like a mountain at the foot of the bed, his face carved into an image of concern. Vivian’s hands gripped me tight, one on my hip, the other on my chest.

  I said, “That hurts, you know?”

  She stopped, staring down at me with glistening eyes. My right arm hurt a lot and so did my shoulders. Matter of fact, everything hurt. I had knife cuts bleeding all over me. Bruises were forming. I tried to sit up a little and look myself over. The room swam. A severe pain exploded inside my skull. What had happened to me in my dream had come out of the dream. I was mangled badly and losing blood everywhere.

  “He’s awake. He’s awake,” Osamu shouted into the phone.

  I managed to get my left hand around the red pearl chained around my throat. I poured my desperate need into the pearl.

  It warmed in response. A red mist wrapped my hand and flowed down my body. Strength came—the Red Lady’s gift. I poured it into my healing tattoos. I used them sparingly because they required so much power, leaving me as weak as my Vampire Speed tattoo usually did. Fortunately, this time, the Red Lady was making the payment for the magic I needed. That had its down side too. She’d expect me to be nice to her now, spend time with her in her crimson dimension. The problem with that is that once I went there, there’d be no guarantee she’d ever let me out.

  The sound of bones springing back into place made Vivian’s hands jerked off me. It would take a few minutes for me to finish healing, but the job was underway. Muscles burned, melding various rips and tears. My knife wounds visibly closed. I closed my eyes and let the red mist do its thing. I felt like I still needed about twenty hours of sleep.

  Do I dare ever sleep again?

  And of course, people wanted to talk to me. “What the hell happened to you” Joshua asked.

  “Ran into a door,” I said. “Hey, I’m going to be ravenously hungry soon. Somebody want to fix me something? New sheets would be good too. These are covered in blood.”

  Vivian shouted at me, “I want to know what stupid thing you did without us, and I want to know now!”

  “Frozen pizza all right?” Josh asked.

  I pried my eyes open to stare at him. “I’d rather have it cooked.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “When out of lube, there’s always blood.”

  —Caine Deathwalker.

  Osamu helped me to a recliner while the bedding was stripped and fresh sheets were put on. I ate the pizza when it came, and demanded several more. Josh moved the bed and took colored duct tape and—under my supervision—roughed out an Atlantean-style summoning circle on the hard wood floor. Old Man sent us a phone picture of the necessary symbols for the interior pattern of a seven-pointed star inside the larger circle. I sent pictures back of what we’d done.

  Old Man studied the images and responded with a text: adequate. If you’d studied your dead languages properly, I wouldn’t have to look over your shoulder this way.

  While Josh put the bed back, I sent Old Man a picture of me flipping him the bird, and hung up. I returned to the bed to finish off a small bottle of Scotch Osamu slipped me. With any luck, the protective charm would keep the power of the dream stone from finding me while I got some badly needed rest. Due to the severe damage I’d taken, bouncing back fully would need hours more.

  “Josh, while I’m out of things, the dhampyr might decide to attack.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got backup on the way. I’ve also called in all the toms and tabbies in our small clan. We’ll be ready for trouble.”

  Easier said than done.

  Leaving, Josh opened the door to the hall and stepped out. Kat was there, an Indian dreamcatcher in her hand. She used a thumbtack to hang it on the outside of the door. Seeing me watching, she shrugged. “Can’t hurt.” She closed the door.

  I closed my eyes, trying to settle my whirling thoughts. So I could go back to sleep.

  I needed to go after Mason. If I could trust any part of my dream, he had the dream stone and had just used it to try and kill me. The longer I waited, the more prepared he’d be for me. Even now, he’d be telling the dhampyr I was behind all the recent killings in town, that I was the one trying to take over the city, and that I had a good shot at succeeding with the liger on my side. Still, worse than going in late was going in weak and unprepared.

  I drowsed in and out of consciousness. At one point, I realized that I was much warmer than before, but it was okay. An oscillating fan had been brought in to ease the heat of day. I looked at the clock on the night stand. 3:00 PM. I needed at least two more hours.

  The door opened and closed. I didn’t bother to see who it was. My heightened sense of smell picked up the lovely scent of freshly bathed female flesh, dhampyr. Vivian. She slid onto the bed and snuggled up behind me. Her arm came over my hip. Her hand slid up my chest and stopped over my slowly beating heart, as if seeking reassurance. Her forehead pressed into my bare back. Her breath stirred the fine hairs along my spine.

  “Caine?”

  “Hmmmmm?”

  “If you ever die on me, I’m going to very pissed.”

  “Understandable,” I murmured.

  “Very pissed.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “I’ll probably piss on your grave.”

  “Don’t get caught,” I said. “They put you in jail for that. Trust me, I know.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  Fluttering in and out of consciousness, I began to ask myself if I had the energy to roll over and take what was so available. It was a testament to my tiredness that I fell into a deep sleep with the question unresolved.

  The roar brought me awake with a surge of adrenaline hitting my system. I was surprised the windows didn’t explode inward, that hurricane force winds didn’t rip open the building. The sound embodied rage, a promise of death coming swiftly. My brain registered all this as I burst off the bed, searching for my clothes—especially by shoulder rig with the PPKs.

  It belatedly registered that Vivian was gone. I was alone.

  Never shaped by a human throat, the scream came again, bestial, hungry. We had a bigger problem than attacking dhampyr. I knew that roar. The Spirit Bear had tracked me down. I heard the sound of wood splintering, bursting apart.

  That’s the living room door getting bitch-smacked out of the way.

  A second roar, louder, exploded through the house, a different timbre from the first one.

  And that’ll be Josh going all liger.

  I spotted fresh clothes laid out on the recliner. My harness and guns were there as well. I crossed over and dressed hurriedly in tan slacks, a black tee, boots, and finished by arming myself. I checked the loads in the clips. One was filled with explosive rounds. The other gun had a wolf-n-bat clip: laser-carved Brazilian Rosewood bullets that had been soaked in holy water, blessed by a priest, and had little silver crosses on the tips. No werewolf or vamp was going to easily heal a wound made by these, but the rounds were totally useless for a Spirit Bear.

  I pocketed that clip, found my bag by the chair, and rummaged for a couple more explosive clips. There was only one more of those, and a few clips with iron-cored slugs for fey. I took them all, making a mental note to restock ASAP.

  With the second gun loaded like the first, I ran to the door and flung it open. The sounds
of battle rose from below: Kat squalling in fury as her inner cat came out, breakables breaking, heavy furniture screeching across the floor, thumping into walls, snarls galore. I ran down the a short hall to the upper landing of the stairs. In a hurry, I slid down the rail, bailing just before the end where an ornate knob—a wooden acorn actually—topped the end post. I landed beside a book case that had fallen on its side, with both my guns in hand, muzzles locked on the liger and the green, flaming bear, as I waited for a clean shot.

  The werekitties were down, looking bad. I didn’t want them to die. They were destined for my harem. The unknown toms, male cat shape-shifters, laying here and there didn’t mean much to me at all.

  The liger was smaller and should have been overwhelmed, but he’d gone all jungle cat, losing his humanity in a complete transformation, none of this halfway stuff. He was fighting for his home, his pregnant wife. A flying piece of debris had already clipped her head, starting it bleeding. Her pointy cat ears and tail were out, but she otherwise retained human form. I wondered why. She was more vulnerable this way.

  The baby. Now that she knows she’s pregnant, she won’t do a major shift. It might cost her the child. No wonder Josh has gone ape-shit.

  I heard a loud crunch, as the liger bit off a chunk of bear skull, taking an ear with it. Blood poured down the bear’s head. Its eyes were wide in shock. Though its front claws were gouging deep in the liger, Josh had his hind feet bicycling, a common disemboweling technique of lions and tigers.

  With a great effort, the bear ripped the liger loose and flung him across the room, into the kitchen, through the kitchen door, and into the backyard.

  I emptied my clips into the bear, going for as many head and heart shots as possible. The bear would have zeroed in on me and charged, but Kat hurled butcher knives from a butcher’s block, Vivian filled the front doorway, a bucking shotgun in her hands, spitting fire and thunder, and Osamu dug out of a pile of fallen shelves and broken furniture with his demon sword in hand, looking for a place to start carving.

  The bear couldn’t even rear properly; it was too tall for the ceiling. Hunching awkwardly, several knife handles jutting from its fur, its paw caught the room’s overhead light, smashing it loose, spraying pieces at Kat.

  Vivian kept unloading slugs into the bear that blew off chunks.

  Osamu leaped, powering into a diagonal slash meant to cut the bear’s throat.

  And I dropped empty clips, reloading.

  We were doing a helluva lot of damage to the house and the bear, but it wasn’t a natural creature anymore than Josh was. Just as his shifter’s form healed the most horrific of injuries, so did the bear’s. Already, the bear’s skull was back together, his missing ear grown back. The bear ignored his slashed throat, batting Osamu outside through a living room window.

  Kat ran out of knives, and picked up a laundry iron by her feet. Holding it by the handle, she had a sort of brass-knuckle affair, well, steel-knuckle you could call it.

  Vivian ran out of shot, and choked up on the barrel of the shotgun like she meant to bludgeon the bear into submission.

  And my defensive barrier had snapped on full because the she-bear was looking straight at me with murder in her eyes.

  The liger chose that moment to barrel back into the house, a golden blur, silent as lightning running ahead of its own thunder. The liger sprang from pointblank range, hitting low. Using human cunning and a linebacker’s knowledge of leverage, Josh picked the bear entirely off her feet. They both slammed through an exterior wall, into the front yard.

  Kat tried to follow, but I caught and held her back.

  “Don’t get in his way,” I said. “He can fight the bear, or get himself ripped up bad by having to also protect you. Which do you want?”

  If looks can kill…

  The growl in her throat died as my words sank in.

  I figured it was time to adjust her attitude a little more so she wouldn’t fight my plans to make Josh the new Master of the City. “We need him to do what only he can. You kept Josh out of preternatural politics, and a master vampire and his cronies moved in. This hell-beast moved in. Dozens died, wolves, humans, and fey.” I neglected to mention that the bear’s kills were mostly due to my having pissing it off. “A weak city is always targeted, vulnerable. What kind of a world are you building for your kid? One where the good and innocent must hide or die, or bend before the power of the perverse?”

  I’d been polishing that speech in my head for a while now. I hoped it worked. I had no more time. I put my guns away and concentrated on my Dragon Fire tat as I ran out the big hole in the living room wall. I paid for the magic with the pain of a meat cleaver thumping its way down my back, breaking up my vertebrae, chopping up my spinal cord.

  Fuck! That’s a new one.

  Outside, Osamu waited for an opening, his demon sword thrumming in ecstasy.

  Vivian caught a bear paw and went sailing into someone’s hedge.

  Gaping jaws locked on each other, the liger and bear tumbled onto the limo, caving in the hood, pulverizing the windshield. Dragon fire danced in my palms, waiting to be thrown.

  And that’s when the cavalry arrived. Three white vans pulled up in the street. Their doors were thrust open as men and women in full military gear disembarked. The air thickened with thunder as a black helicopter dropped down into view, hovering twenty feet above the vans. Staring at the helicopter’s open bay door, I saw a .50 machine gun, and a young kid with sunglasses and a grin playing with a remote-control. At his feet, ready to launch, was a drone.

  A PRT hit team? Josh, what were you thinking?

  The shrill scream of approaching police cars added to the chaos.

  Apparently, no one had told the kid in the chopper that the liger was a good guy. The drone shot in, taking on both liger and Spirit Bear—and limo. My poor limo! All three went up in a BOOM! The limo’s gas tank followed. Another BOOM! Black, greasy smoke climbed into the sky, trimmed with orange flames that came and went as shrapnel rained. The men from the vans ducked low to ride out the explosions. The helicopter swayed in the sky. I heard men mouthing curses. The neighbor’s Chihuahua yelped from under a porch.

  Something heavy crashed onto the porch beside me. It was so shredded and burnt, you couldn’t really tell what it had been. Kat emerged from the wreckage of the house, an Indian blanket in hand. She beat out the flames on a huge, well-done steak. The steak groaned, almost a human sound. Big chunks filled in as it grew smaller, the size of a large man. Black skin flaked off. Patches like raw hamburger knitted into muscle. Fragments of bone fused, becoming whole. It bled until the wounds closed. New pink skin crept over the exposed muscle. Finally, Josh began to take form.

  Where the bear went was anybody’s guess.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Sympathy is a connivance

  one should use sparingly.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  “Kat, Josh will sleep a lot longer than I did. There’s a lot of internal damage to heal. The PRT will get him medical care—he was one of theirs.” She looked at me, puzzled, probably wondering why I was recapping the obvious. I pushed on, making my points, “I have friends on the PRT, but I’m also a Person of Interest in a number of their investigations. I’ve got work to do, so I’m slipping out of here. Josh won’t be able to protect anyone for a while. You and your people need go underground.”

  Her eyes went back to Josh. “I can’t leave him … like this.”

  “He’d agree with me. You need to do this for him. Your lives are never going to be peaceful and quiet. Start supporting his destiny.” The encroaching soldiers were rounding up Osamu and Vivian. Others were looking our way. “Decide now.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Okay, fine.”

  I fired up my Demon Wings tat, and felt myself stomped on by some unseen colossus. The numbing impact shook me, and then the sensation of crumpled flatness evaporated. I’d become invisible. Within my zone, Kat was cloaked by magic as well. “Back up, but
stay close to me. Keep me between your people and the soldiers.”

  The PRT personnel had faltered, staring, but were coming on again, weapons in hand, moving slowly.

  We retreated into the ruins of the living room and found the toms and tabbies pulling themselves together. Though disheveled, wearing torn clothes, the cat people had healed up and looked pretty functional, which was good since we had to run.

  I extended my magic to those Kat called over. I said, “Cleo, take point. Lead everyone to the back of the property. We’re going over the fence.”

  “Gotcha!”

  We ran as a knot of people, slowing only a little as we exited the spot where the back door had once been. In the backyard, we heard the helicopter swinging over the house. I wasn’t sure we’d get away cleanly. They could have had someone up there with some serious power, a seer, witch with a scrying crystal, or a fey on the team able to pierce my spread-thin demon magic.

  In the backyard, a couple orange trees shielded us. Instead of wasting time scrambling over the six-foot wooden fence, I kicked out several planks. We slipped through into someone’s backyard. No animals barked. A small plastic kid’s pool was full, but no children were around. The grass was brown with neglect. The white-painted house’s windows were blocked by mini-blinds. An external air-conditioner whirred softly to itself, as we passed it, going along the side of the building, through a gate to the front yard.

  I glanced back. The helicopter still hung above Kat’s house. It looked like we’d gotten away clean. Despite the drain, I kept everyone close to me, shielded by my Demon Wings magic, until Kat directed us to a small, neighborhood park that had some swings, a slide, picnic table, and a bit of cool green grass. I collapsed under a Japanese maple and wiped the sweat from my eyes.