The Demon's Deal

by H. D. Gordon

  Raven was smoking a cigarette, a habit she only ever turned to in times of real trouble. She blew out a puff of smoke. “He’s a bad guy, but as far as I know, no, he’s not the bad guy, the man in the shadows or whatever, and he’s not working for him.” She snorted. “Shiva doesn’t work for anyone but himself. I can’t believe I ever trusted him.”

  “Why do you think he’d help us now?”

  Raven shrugged. “I don’t know if he will, but he’s always preaching about supernaturals needing to band together against the humans. It was why I joined him in the first place. I…I wanted somewhere I was accepted. I wanted a family, a home.”

  I knew the feeling.

  “In all honesty,” she added, “I’m not sure if going to him will make matters better, or worse.”

  I kicked at a pebble on the porch. “I don’t know how things could get much worse.”

  Raven met my gaze. “Things can always get worse, Aria.”

  A shiver ran up my spine. I had to swallow before I could speak. “But he has connections, right? Maybe he knows someone who knows a Seer or something?”

  “Maybe.”

  I sighed and turned to go back inside. “I guess it’s the best lead we’ve got,” I said.

  Just before I slipped back into the cabin, I heard Raven mumble, so low that I knew I was not meant to hear it.

  “Then we’re more screwed than we even know,” she said.

  I looked down at the plain white business card in my hand, running a finger over the raised numbers there.

  My mind flashed back to the person who’d given it to me nearly nine months ago, a person who’d slipped into a booth at the diner where I’d worked just as I was closing the place down for the night.

  I hadn’t gotten a look at his face. It had been wreathed in…shadows.

  And he’d scared me. He hadn’t raised his voice or threatened me, but the fear I’d felt being near him had been palpable enough that I remembered it even now. He’d known who I was, had known about the deal I’d made with Saleos, had told me to call him if I needed help in wriggling out of it.

  I’d refused his offer, knowing a bad egg when I saw one, but now, with two weeks left before my toll came due, I wondered if I might need to call the number on the card after all.

  It said something that I thought dealing with Shiva was a wiser option. It spoke to the fear that I’d felt in the shadow man’s presence.

  I was standing in the driveway of the cabin, waiting for the others to get ready. When Thomas stepped out of the house and approached, I slipped the white card back into my pocket.

  Thomas wrapped his arm around my waist, placing a gentle kiss to my forehead. “You okay?” he asked.

  “I guess…. By the way, you didn’t look surprised when I said I found the Seer dead. Did you already know?”

  Thomas’s mouth pulled up in a humorless half smile. “When two days passed and you didn’t return, I went to see the Seer for myself…. I found her body.”

  I nodded. “Why aren’t you mad that I took off without you guys?”

  Thomas raised a brow. “I learned a long time ago that there’s no point in trying to contain you, and really, it’s one of the qualities I like about you.”

  I glanced back at the house, wondering if there was time for me to show him how much I adored him as well.

  But we both knew there wasn’t.

  Time, as it would turn out, was our biggest enemy of all.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “You don’t have to do this, Raven,” I said. “Thomas and I are fine going in alone.”

  Raven stared at the neighborhood of ramshackle houses, at the trash littered road that led into them, and shook her head. “No, I need to do this. This is the place that has been haunting my nightmares, and his is the face I see in those nightmares.” She stepped a little closer to me as she spoke, though I didn’t think she was even aware of doing so. “I need to face him,” she added.

  The neighborhood was one that could be found in any state in America, though not one that would be advertised to tourists. The houses were all old and poorly built, many of them boarded up and abandoned. Stray dogs wandered between the rubbish, digging through the muck in search of something to eat. It smelled like urine and rotting wood, though the hopeless faces of those who milled about revealed that they had long gotten used to the stench.

  “Why would Shiva choose to live here?” I asked, remembering how powerful the Mixbreed was, how he’d controlled my physical body with a few flicks of his wrist.

  Raven snorted softly. “He’s all about being with the ‘common people,’ and this neighborhood hosts some of the most downtrodden of supernaturals. Basically, these are his people.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Though to be honest, I suspect that he chose this specific population because they’re easy to manipulate, and they worship anyone who’s willing to provide them with any form of guidance or sustenance.”

  I looked at the surrounding area anew. “Supernaturals live here?”

  Raven nodded, drawing closer to me still as we wandered further down the street. “Little known fact, along with women and people of color, supernaturals have always been among the most oppressed in the human realm. It’s kind of hard to get a job when you don’t have a social security number, or to have health insurance when if you went to a doctor and they ran a simple blood test, you’d likely end up in a secret lab somewhere.”

  I blinked. “Are you saying the government knows about the existence of supernaturals and has willfully oppressed them?”

  Another snort. “Oh, Aria. You’re so ignorant sometimes that it’s endearing.”

  My mouth fell open, and I looked to Thomas.

  He shrugged. “It makes sense,” he said. “You know I work with an agency that deals with extra terrestrials, and that’s not public knowledge. I don’t see why the top officials wouldn’t know about supernaturals as well.”

  Raven nodded. “And who do you think your superiors at the Peace Brokers have been dealing with in the human realm all this time?”

  I didn’t know what to say to this. Now that they’d laid it out for me, it seemed so obvious.

  “Dig into the history a little when you get a chance,” Raven continued. “You’d be surprised by what your revered government has done, by the things they’ve covered up…and the atrocities they’ve committed against our kind.”

  I tucked this information away for later, not counting on the fact that I would ever have the time to do such digging, because Raven had come to a stop, and was staring up at a house that looked like all the others.

  Except for the fact that there were a dozen or more people hanging around outside of it, and now that I was paying attention, their auras did indeed reveal that they were all supernatural.

  Every eye turned in our direction as we approached, and I noticed that there were Wolves and Vamps, magic users and other types of supernaturals that I couldn’t even identify. They stood around drinking and smoking, the conversation drying up as they turned to us.

  Raven pushed her chin up a little and started up the driveway, weaving through the gathered with a feigned confidence I admired, because her aura revealed how difficult this was for her. Inside the small, sagging house before us, after all, was the male who’d strung her up on the Grant City Bridge, using her as bait for both the Blue Beast and the Masked Maiden.

  “Raven,” said a dirty looking male who was unmistakably Werewolf. “Haven’t seen you around for a while.” His tongue snaked out over his lips, his hairy arms and chest bared in a once-white wife beater. He sniffed in Thomas’s direction. “Human,” he said, with obvious distaste.

  Thomas looked back at him, unimpressed. I pushed our little group forward before the testosterone in the air could start choking us.

  The Werewolf grabbed Raven’s wrist as she tried to scoot past, and the fear that spiked in her aura set me off. As a Succubus, she had certain gifts, like being able to suck the soul from people, but a Werew
olf was definitely stronger and faster. And I could see from their auras that she had an unpleasant history with this particular male.

  So when he grabbed her wrist, maybe it was my over protectiveness or the stress I’d been under lately, but I saw red.

  The next thing I knew, I’d broken his hold on Raven and sent him flying into the air with an uppercut that made the gathered gasp.

  The Wolf was on his feet again a moment later, his eyes glowing gold. I grinned at him, telling him without words to bring it on. The other supernaturals around us started to hoot and holler, eager to see a fight.

  Thomas mumbled a curse, and Raven looked as though she wouldn’t mind seeing me beat the crap out of this wannabe alpha. I settled into my fighter’s stance and crooked my fingers at him as though I were some Halfling Bruce Lee.

  Anger flared in the Wolf’s aura, and he prepared to charge.

  Just then, the front door to the house opened, and a powerful voice cut through the chaos.

  “Enough, Horace,” Shiva said. His dark eyes fell on me, and a shiver raced up my spine. “Miss Fae, please, come inside.”

  The inside of the house was clean, but matched the outside neighborhood in every other way.

  The furniture was old and torn, the space free of clutter to the point of being sparse. Other than a couch and a few chairs, there was only a bookshelf stocked with books and a guitar leaning against the wall.

  There were also several females of various supernatural races hanging around, but Shiva shooed them away, and then it was just Thomas, Raven, Shiva, and me.

  “Raven, my darling,” Shiva said, approaching her with open arms. When she shied away from him, he clucked his tongue, dropping his arms. “You’re not still mad about that little bridge thing, are you?”

  Raven’s aura flared with anger, but she smiled, red lips pulling up in the corners. “Of course not,” she said.

  “Well, I’m still pissed about it,” I cut in. “But that’s not why we came here.”

  Shiva’s eyes lingered on Raven for long enough that I became uncomfortable. I cleared my throat, and his gaze flicked over to me. For the leader of a cult and an ultra powerful Mixbreed, Shiva looked much like any other male who was clearly full of himself. Wearing a tailored black suit and shiny black shoes, he was utterly out of place in his surroundings.

  “Miss Fae,” he said, “the last time we spoke you told me you had no interest in joining me, and now, here you are. Please do explain the nature of your visit, then.”

  “We’re looking for a Seer,” I said.

  Shiva’s eyebrows rose, his aura spiking with interest. “A Seer? Whatever for?”

  “That’s irrelevant. Do you know a Seer, or not?”

  Shiva crossed one leg over the other, settling back in his seat. “You know, for a former Peace Broker, you could sure use some practice in diplomacy.”

  My jaw clenched. “And for a creepy ass cult leader…. Well, actually, you pretty much live up to that stereotype.”

  Anger flashed in Shiva’s aura, but he remained relaxed in his seat. “If you’ve only come to insult me….” He waved a hand at the front door.”

  “We’re going after the Relic,” Raven said.

  I kept my eyes on Shiva’s aura, seeing that he wasn’t just curious now, but intrigued. He knew what the Relic was, knew what it could do, and unless I was reading wrong, he’d gone after it in the past.

  His eyes flicked to me. “We’re not so different after all, Miss Fae.”

  I bit back the snarky retort that tried to escape my throat. “Do you know a Seer, and will you tell us how to find it?”

  “That depends. What are you planning to do with the Relic?” Shiva asked.

  “We’re not going to give it to you,” Thomas said. These were the first words he’d spoken since we’d arrived.

  Shiva ignored him as if he wasn’t even there, looking at me for an answer.

  “He’s right. I’m going to return it to its rightful guardian.”

  “Why do you think I’d want you to give it to me?”

  I raised a brow. “Because the Relic is pure power, and isn’t that what creepy cult leaders are always after?”

  Shiva shook his head, dark hair seeming to absorb the dim light in the room, hands resting neatly on the armrests of his chair. “You know what’s frustrating, Miss Fae? It’s that the general population of the world is so ignorant of what’s truly going on around them, that if you are one of the few who takes the time to figure it out, to be woke, as the kids say nowadays, you’re considered an extremist.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “or maybe I considered you an extremist when you got my classmate killed, or when you tied Raven and Andrea to the Grant City Bridge and lured the Blue Beast there. Twenty-three people died in that attack.”

  “It would have been hundreds if not for your heroics, Miss Fae.”

  My fists clenched tight enough to ache. I had a list of insults longer than my legs, but didn’t see how they’d help, so I kept my mouth shut. Shiva was silent for long enough that I almost reconsidered this.

  Then, he said, “I know a Seer, Miss Fae, and I’ll tell you how to find him, because as I said, you and I are not so different. That’s why I tried so hard to convince you to join me. You and I want the same thing. We just have different ways of going about getting it.”

  “Yes, well, I don’t think the ends always justify the means,” I said.

  Shiva smiled thinly. “I suppose that’s what makes you a hero…or a fool, depending on how you look at it.”

  “Where’s the Seer?”

  “Before I tell you, I need you to promise that you will leave him be. Once you see him, you will not try to…interfere on his behalf. Do I have your word?”

  My gut twisted at this, my better instincts telling me that I would regret making this promise. I glanced toward the window overlooking the front yard, where the sun was beginning to set on another day. We were running out of time. I was running out of time.

  “Fine,” I said. “I promise not to interfere. Now, please.”

  Shiva’s smile was cold enough to make me shiver. “Right this way, Miss Fae.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Here?” I said. “The Seer is here?”

  “I’d keep it down if I were you,” Shiva replied. “Noise can rile some of the others.”

  I stood at a doorway inside Shiva’s house manned by a Vamp and a Were, staring down a dark staircase, the bottom of which was lost in shadows. The smells of damp earth and mildew drifted up, making me wrinkle my nose, and my sixth sense picked up several aura signatures.

  “What the hell is this?” Thomas asked.

  Again, Shiva ignored him.

  “Go on, Miss Fae,” he said. “You have ten minutes. Only you.”

  I glanced at Thomas and Raven, the former looking pissed and the latter looking as apprehensive as I felt. With a sigh, I took a step down into the darkness. As soon as I was through the doorway, the door shut behind me, the black pitch around me.

  Mumbling a curse, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and turned on the flashlight, glad that I’d had the foresight to charge it this morning, and made my way down. The steps went deeper than I’d expected, until the temperature dropped ten degrees and the scent of wet earth became overpowering.

  Further and further down. I was just beginning to wonder if the staircase might descend into hell when I finally reached the bottom. The hair on my arms stood on end as I stared around, the phone light barely penetrating the darkness. When I heard a low growl to my right, I nearly jumped out of my skin, swinging the light that way.

  My heart paused, because I saw that I was standing in a narrow space like a hallway, and on either side of me were barred cages. Within the cage to my left, where that growl had sounded, was a creature unlike any I’d ever seen, with fur like a Wolf and a head like a ram. Its lips pulled back over sharp teeth as I stood stupefied. It banged its horned head against the bars, the metallic sound echoing down th
e hallway.

  I forced my feet onward, my eyes unable to see more than a few feet ahead, but my sixth sense picking up aura signatures far into the distance. Each time I passed a cell, my heart ached at the sight of the creature trapped there.

  After twenty cells or so, I could no longer look beyond the bars. I had to shut off some of my Empath abilities, because the suffering and rage of the creatures trapped here was too great to observe all at once. When I reached a cell that seemed empty for lack of an aura, I paused, remembering that the Seer in the woods had not had an aura.

  I swallowed, ignoring the thumping of my heart and shining the light of my cell phone into the cell, scattering some of the shadows there.

  It didn’t reach far enough. The back of the cell was still draped in darkness. If I wanted to see if someone or something was in there, I needed to get closer to the bars.

  I took one step, and then another. Still not close enough.

  Holding my breath, I held up the light, getting close enough now that if something was behind those bars, they could easily reach through and grab me.

  As if the thought had summoned it, a flash of white stepped into the pool of light cast by my phone. The creature moved so fast that even with my supernatural speed I could not escape its clutches. I blinked, and a cold hand wrapped around my throat, ancient breath smacking me in the face as I was slammed against the bars. My phone clattered to the earthen ground, casting the light upward, illuminating my captor.

  Milky white eyes stared back at me. “Child of Immortals and men,” said the Seer. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Under most circumstances, I would be difficult to keep a hold on. I’m strong and trained to be able to escape most holds, but this was different. While my mind screamed at me to act, my body remained passive, staring into the white gaze of the Seer.

  I tried to draw a breath, and could not.

  I tried to make my hands come up and claw at his grip on my throat, and could not.