Black Widow Demon (Demon Outlaws)
Page 18
“We have to leave here before other demons find us,” Blade said. “You’re sending out signals a dead man could follow.”
She had to smile at that, although she knew he was right. It was unsafe for her to be here when she was in this state. Besides, morning was almost upon them and it was past time to leave.
“Will you promise me one thing?” she asked.
Blade’s face did not soften. The blackness of his eyes held a fierce heat that scorched where they touched her. “I’ll promise you anything that’s in my power to give.”
Clutching his open shirtfront in her fists, she drew herself up so her lips touched the spot beneath his ear. She did not want to be overheard expressing a fear to him.
“Don’t let him own me,” she said, just as the sun burst over the horizon. “I’d rather be dead.”
…
Blade’s eyelids flew open, her words ringing in his head. The familiar tarpaulin ceiling of their shelter greeted him. He threw back the blankets, hauled on his boots, and burst coatless through the flap into the crisp morning air of the mortal world.
Where was Raven?
She stood at the very edge of the thin precipice, her eyes closed, and his heart pounded with fear. One small misstep and she would be over the edge.
He walked carefully toward her, not wanting to startle her but intent on removing her from danger. When he was within reach, he grabbed the sleeve of her coat and pulled her to him.
Then he had her in his arms, warm and secure against his chest. A darkening bruise bloomed across her swelling cheek.
It had not been a nightmare.
She opened her eyes as if startled to see him, then curled into his body, pressing her face against the curve of his shoulder. He massaged the back of her head with his fingertips, the tangled mass of glossy curls sliding over his knuckles, his thoughts chaotic and difficult for him to contain. Fear, desire, anger, possessiveness—they all swirled inside him.
He would never let her father have her.
He had made such a mistake. He’d worried about how she would react to Creed’s message and only intended to allow her time alone to come to terms with it. The possibility it might weaken her and leave her vulnerable had never entered his mind. He should have known. He should have stayed by her side, protected her. He would not make this mistake again.
The danger to her in the demon boundary might have passed, but she was still not safe. He had never been responsible for another to such an extent, and he’d never known this type of all-encompassing fear. The thought of failing her plagued him. He had not felt this inadequate since before the use of his leg had been restored. He disentangled his fingers from her hair and buried the emotion as deep as he could, not wanting to acknowledge it or for her to sense it.
“Get your things.” His voice came out harsher than intended, but she nodded.
Blade checked their stores, satisfied they had enough food to last them for a few weeks more. Villages would be few and far between where they were headed, and possibly unfriendly. They would continue to avoid them whenever possible.
When they finished packing, he strapped the rifle sleeve to his back. A rifle’s report would not be a problem where they were headed, and its range, a necessity. He examined the sky, which was clear and blue, the sun still several fingers from noon. He took a deep breath and looked over at Raven. They both knew it was time to go.
Instead of turning toward the unbroken passage that led down the mountain, Blade set off in the opposite direction.
“I thought we were leaving the mountains,” Raven said, wading through a drift to keep up with his longer strides.
He slowed his pace to match hers. “We are. We’re going to descend from the other side.”
Her steps faltered. “But the world ends past the final summit.”
That was the common belief, and one the Godseekers perpetuated. There was a reason the Temple of Immortal Right was located so close to the goddesses’ boundary. They had no wish for ordinary people to find it. Only the goddesses’ chosen could enter, and even they could not cross.
Or so the Godseekers claimed. In Blade’s time at the temple, no one had ever tried.
“No one knows that for certain,” he said. “We’re going to find out.” She still seemed uncertain though, which was so out of character for her that he reached over to slide his fingers around the nape of her neck to draw her closer to him. He pressed a kiss to her forehead near her mass of unruly curls before releasing her. “You’ve faced demons in the demon boundary. The goddess boundary can’t possibly compare to that. And if it does, we’ll turn back.”
They pressed on until well into late afternoon. When they reached a small valley, burrowed between ragged cliffs and magnificent granite arches, they stopped. At the valley’s bottom, a deep blue lake bounded by sparse, bristlecone pines glistened in the fading remnants of the day. A thin sheet of ice adorned the lake’s center, encircled by open water. Wind, and the heat of the sun, had scrubbed the ground around it bare of all but a few patches of melting snow.
By the time they found a spot suitable for camp among the trees and tumbled boulders, Blade was far more exhausted than Raven seemed. He had not slept in almost two days. Time, too, had dulled his memories. He was less familiar with this part of the mountain range, and finding his way through it had proven a challenge.
Raven dropped her pack, then collected her bow and quiver of arrows. Her diamond eyes, filled with curiosity, were fastened on the lake.
“I’ll gather firewood,” she said.
As much as he would prefer otherwise, Blade did not intend to smother her. He could not let his worry overrule common sense. He just nodded and began erecting their shelter while she went off alone. But he did not like having her too far out of his reach, so he set a time limit. If she did not return within it, he would join her, and they could gather firewood together.
He explored the area surrounding the shelter while he waited, idly wondering what sort of wildlife existed here. The fresh water from the lake was an asset, but it also attracted other creatures, including wolven. They had been fortunate to avoid them at the higher elevations, partly thanks to the weather, but they had reached the far side of the mountain now and begun their descent into woodlands. They would need to take greater care against possible predators.
Blade crouched down, resting on his heels, and watched Raven as she skipped nimbly over puddles of melting snow to the edge of the lake. She seemed fascinated. Growing up on the edge of the desert, all that water would be novel to her, he supposed. It had been a long time for him, too, since he had seen so much of it, so he could well understand.
It was Raven who truly held his interest, however. She had thrown back her hood so that her curls bounced around her flushed cheeks, and she tucked one glove beneath her arm as she bent to touch the water’s surface with her bare fingertips. The heavy coat and thick trousers she wore were not flattering, but her natural grace was apparent in the lithe way she moved, and the delicate curves of her throat and wrist hinted at what was underneath.
She was not, Blade thought, the only one who appreciated beauty in its many forms. More often than not, she took his breath away. He’d never had anything of so much importance to protect.
And he had almost lost her today.
Her bow lay on the ground near her, within easy reach, and every once in a while she would look up at him, as if to make certain he was still there. The gesture warmed him, and most of the fatigue he had been fighting for the past few hours gradually sloughed away.
The bruise on her face from her father’s blow, visible even from this distance, continued to gnaw at his conscience. It should never have happened. If they could move out of the mountains and into a land protected from demons by the goddesses, he hoped Raven might be safe from them, too. If the land was as vast as the books he’d read promised, Justice would never be able to find her either. If he did, Blade could kill him and no one would ever know.
A lone black crow burst into the air from the crown of one of the bristlecone pine trees a few hundred paces behind Raven. It circled, loudly scolding whatever had disturbed it.
Blade craned his neck but saw nothing amidst the trees. He straightened, stretching the kinks from his knees as he prepared to make his way to the lake. Raven’s time was up. It would be completely dark soon, and they needed that wood for the fire.
He began to pick through the broken chunks of rock and between the bony pines toward the water’s edge. Shadows moved across the ground, breaking free from the lingering path of the retreating sun, and headed for Raven, who had her back turned to him.
It was the position of the shadows’ movements in relation to the sun that first caught Blade’s eye, but it took a fraction of a second longer for his brain to process that what he saw was not normal.
He hooked his rifle from the sleeve slung across his back, then dropped to a knee and took aim at one of the shadows. As it drew closer to Raven it wavered, coalesced, and began to gain in substance until it took solid form. He sighted down the weapon’s barrel, his finger tightening on the trigger even as he shouted a warning.
“Raven, run!”
Chapter Thirteen
In the early light of morning, Justice watched from the courtyard training area as Creed left the temple through the front gate, headed in the opposite direction than the one he’d taken with Blade the night before.
It had been two days since the storm had passed. Time was now working against Justice.
He turned to Might. “Find out where he’s headed,” he said, his breath puffing in small clouds as he spoke. “And what he does when he gets there. Meet me back in Goldrush in two weeks.”
Might nodded. He knew better than to track an assassin too closely and would leave a few hours behind him.
While Might pursued Creed, Justice and Cage would track the assassin Blade. His footsteps from the previous night were already old, so they could leave at once. While Justice did not dare trail him too closely either, he did not want to lose him altogether.
They left their hross in the temple’s stable and began their trek across the mountain, making their exit from the side posterns through which Creed and Blade had left during the night. Cage was the best tracker Justice knew, and the footsteps in the broken snow were plain to see, yet he complained more than once that Justice was following with his hopes, not his eyes.
Justice frowned. The guards from the night before had also not noted Creed’s passing through the courtyard or seen the tracks. He had meant to discuss that with Siege.
An alarm niggled at the back of his mind, but his thoughts drifted away from it. Instead they turned to Raven’s mother.
He had not thought about Columbine in any great depth since long before her death. She had once been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, nearly a goddess, and despite the rumors surrounding her daughter’s conception, he had wanted her more than anything, even wealth. But as time passed and he had discovered a demon possessed her affections, his desire for her had turned to disgust, and eventually, hatred. If he had been strong enough to overcome his youthful passion for a goddess, Columbine, too, should have been able to do the same with hers for a demon lover. The only reason Justice had not abandoned her entirely was because of her skill as an artisan and the valuable jewelry she had crafted. When Raven’s skills reached the same level, he’d had no further need of her.
But this unrelenting desire for Raven made him despise himself for a weakness he had thought overcome long ago. That she had found two allies among the Godseeker assassins enraged him further.
Cage suddenly stopped and looked down. He pointed at the faint imprint of a man’s boots, partially erased by windswept snow.
“There,” he said. Disbelief drenched his tone. “The tracks begin out of nowhere.”
They had been following the assassin for more than an hour by now. Justice grunted, but he said nothing to correct him.
As the day wore on, however, and the tracks slowly vanished thanks to the blustering wind, Cage’s tracking abilities became invaluable. He found signs that Justice would never have seen, in part because he anticipated where to look for them.
“The assassin knows how to cover his tracks,” Cage muttered at one point as he swept his hands through a drift, searching for deeper prints that would reveal the direction they needed to pursue.
Near nightfall, they came upon the remains of a camp at the base of a bluff. The ground was well trampled, indicating a prolonged stay, but when they searched, two fresh sets of tracks could be seen heading away. One set was very small and obviously belonged to a woman. Impatience roared in Justice that they were now so close, but as the sun disappeared over the horizon, pursuit was done for the day.
“We’ll have to spend the night here,” he said, “then continue on at first light.” He had not forgotten the burned-out village or that the mountains held dangers other than Blade. It was unwise to go on in the dark. “Can you determine which way they’ve headed?”
Cage scouted the area. He was gone long enough that Justice began to wonder if perhaps the assassin had not abandoned the camp after all but lay in wait for him somewhere close by.
He should have thought of the possibility before.
He shrugged his shoulders deeper into his coat, the flesh between his shoulders crawling, and took a quick glance around. A chunk of frozen snow broke free of the bluff above to glide down the bumpy rock face, startling him, and he dropped one hand to his holster before it hit the ground. A footstep sounded behind him, and he pivoted toward it, pistol in hand.
It was Cage. He held his empty hands up and palms outward.
Justice tucked the weapon back into its holster, feeling foolish and annoyed at being caught acting so edgy, and he opened his mouth to chastise the other man.
Cage moved his finger to his lips, requesting silence.
“We’re being followed,” he said to Justice, his voice quiet.
Justice flexed his hands. He should have been more alert, but his thoughts had been clouded all day. He blamed Creed for this uncharacteristic inattention to danger. It would please the young assassin if Justice failed to find Raven—or return to the temple. Suspicion raised icy hackles.
What if the two assassins had joined forces against him?
“How many?” he asked Cage, keeping his voice equally soft.
Cage’s thin, ferret-like face creased into a frown. “I don’t know for certain.”
That was not encouraging news. They had a drop-off on one side and were trapped by the sheer mountain bluff on the other. Their only escape route lay back the way they had come. If they chose to leave, they might be walking into an ambush. Here, they at least had a strong defensive position.
“We wait,” Justice decided. “Whoever is out there, let them come to us.”
They did not wait long. From around the bluff a lone woman strode toward them, blue flame pirouetting on her palms.
The flame arced, and a ring of blue fire erupted, trapping the two men inside.
…
Raven heard Blade’s warning shout. When she saw him running, she didn’t hesitate. She snatched up her bow and broke from the water’s edge to sprint in a half crouch toward him.
A ripple disturbed the air as a bullet tore over her head, followed by the percussive crack of Blade’s rifle. Then something slammed into her back and knocked her face down to the ground.
A sharp rock jabbed into her breastbone, and although her heavy layer of clothing provided some cushioning, the pressure shot pain through her chest. Another shot rang out. Dirt sprayed her face as the bullet dragged a furrow through the ground next to her head. She did not doubt Blade was an excellent shot and wasted no time worrying that he might strike her by accident. She wa
s far more afraid of being pinned to the ground by an unknown opponent.
She threw her hands up and grabbed her assailant by the back of the neck, hauling his head down beside hers. He tried to punch her in the kidneys, which had little effect since he could not put any strength behind the blows from his current head-locked position. Her clothing offered added protection. Raven struggled to get to her knees, hoping to roll her assailant over her shoulder and away from her to give Blade a better, unimpeded shot at him.
The ground was slick with dead, sodden leaves, making it hard to keep her balance as she tried to shift position. An arm snaked around her waist, flipping her with unexpected strength, so that she became, in effect, a shield. Another arm went about her neck, pressing into her throat.
At once, Raven changed tactics. She went limp, dragging her opponent back to the ground so that Raven was facedown against it, and tried to draw on her demon allure. The shadows moved closer, drawn to the allure she emitted, but they did not solidify completely as a true demon would. Her heart raced.
Where was Blade?
Another rifle report answered her question, and explained why the shadows had not completely taken their mortal forms. As long as they did not, Blade’s bullets would pass through them and they could not be harmed.
The forearm tightened against her throat. “Stand back!” a voice near her ear said sharply to the shadows.
Surprise shuddered through Raven. Her assailant was a woman, not a man.
The woman was also afraid, her hold trembling slightly—but of what, Raven remained uncertain. The thoughts bombarding her were chaotic, scattered and ill formed, as if their owner had been under a great deal of intense and prolonged stress. One thing Raven understood quite well, however. The woman intended to kill her. All that saved her life right now was Blade’s rifle fire.