She tried to calm her own thoughts and come up with a plan. She could not see Blade because her face remained pressed against the half-frozen ground, but the shots told her he was very close. If the shadow people went for him, he would have no defense against them. That meant she had to keep them near her…and distracted. Allure might not work on the woman holding her, but it would keep the males away from Blade.
“Release your hold on them or I’ll break your neck,” the woman snapped in her ear.
Raven flung her arms above and behind her, taking her own two-handed grip on her attacker’s nape. The assailant had strength in her favor, nothing more. She did not know how to fight, and her hold on Raven’s throat was insufficient for the leverage required to carry out such an action.
The other woman’s fear remained palpable, however. Her thoughts twisted and turned as she, too, tried to come up with some sort of resolution that assured her survival and that of her companions.
The assailant should be afraid. She had attacked Raven without provocation, and Blade would not hesitate to shoot her simply because she was a woman. But something was not right about this situation. Her attacker’s fear had deep roots and was not the result of Blade firing several warning shots. As Raven absorbed the woman’s emotions, pity stirred. Terrible things had happened to her.
Raven dug deeper, picking through unguarded thoughts and images to recreate the story. The woman had been in the burned-out village. Her demon ability to shift to shadow was how she had escaped the massacre unnoticed, but she had not been able to protect her children. She had met up with her shadow companions after the bloodshed.
All they sought now was safety. Raven could easily empathize with that.
She relinquished her hold on the woman, then spread her arms and legs wide on the ground so that she was stretched out on her stomach in a prone, submissive position.
“I had no part in what happened,” Raven said. “We came across your village several days after the fire. Please. Let me up so we can talk.”
The woman hesitated. She wanted to believe. To trust. She began to rise when Raven remembered that Blade did not know what was happening. She grabbed the woman and rolled with her, dragging her to the side and out of danger as a bullet whined past where the woman’s head would have been.
With Raven now intent on securing the woman’s safety, she could no longer hold the shadows. Two of them broke away to move at a run toward Blade.
“Blade, don’t shoot!” Raven shouted out to him. She turned to the woman. “Don’t let them hurt him. He believes I’m in danger. Stop them!”
Conflict contorted the woman’s face, her fear warring with what Raven knew to be decency. Raven tried to breathe, terrified for Blade, but she forced herself to remain where she was to save the woman’s life. If Blade killed her, she did not know what the woman’s companions might do to him.
The woman stared hard at Raven, who examined her in return. She had wavy, golden-brown hair and shining eyes the color of bluegrass. Raven dug through the woman’s thoughts.
Her name was Laurel, and as she called the others back to her she shifted to shadow, melting away with the last light of the day.
…
Someone had been following Creed for the better part of the day.
The wind had warmed, and the snow melted beneath the added onslaught of the sun. The man dogging him kept well back, but it was not difficult to know he was there. Whenever Creed paused for a break a casual glance around would reveal a dark spot behind him where only the white of snow should be or birds taking flight and circling en masse in the sky as if they had been inconvenienced.
Once his route was established and his destination obvious, Creed had planned to double back and follow Blade to Raven. He was not yet convinced that she was safe with the other man. Creed did not trust anyone he could not read, and all he had sensed from the implacable assassin was cold determination. But now Creed was being followed with such diligence he could not continue with his plan. That left him irritable and impatient.
After sundown, when it became too dark to keep watch behind him, he stopped at a large hollow in one of the cliff faces, dropped his packs, and prepared to set up camp for the night. He cleared a space of snow, hauled out a few items, then slipped into a small copse of trees as if he were searching for firewood. From there, he trudged back through the brush and pockets of snow, untouched by the wind or the sun throughout the day, to where he had last seen signs of his uninvited travel companion.
By the time he found him, it was fully dark.
Might was the one who followed him, which puzzled Creed at first, because Cage was the better tracker. Then Creed realized that Justice had another, more important, trail he needed Cage to pursue, and it led to Raven.
Creed had not foreseen this, and called himself stupid. The best course of action would be for him to kill Might as quickly and silently as possible. He reached for one of his knives. Like most assassins, he did not use a gun or rifle unless he had to—sound traveled too easily.
He hesitated, then slid the knife back in its sheath. It might be better to lead Might as far off course as possible, lose him in one of the many mountain passes, and trust that Raven was in good hands.
…
Justice noticed two things about the woman in quick succession, aside from the demon fire she manipulated in her hands. First, she had startling, blue-black hair that flowed like spilled oil to her waist. Second, she was not dressed for the cold. Her low-cut white blouse and calico skirt were better meant for inside a saloon than on a snowy mountain.
As she advanced toward the ring of blue fire, cruelty sharpened a face that might otherwise have been beautiful. The flames surrounding the two men stretched and thinned at her approach, reaching for the cliff tops, then fattened and squatted, as if compelled by an unseen force to kneel before her.
A boiling mass of red-hot anger surged inside Justice at being imprisoned by a woman. The anger was tempered by a small degree of caution as he recalled in vivid detail the remnants of the small mountain village, destroyed by fire.
Cage remained watchful beside him. Justice knew by the wary speculation in his companion’s eyes that he, too, understood the meaning of the blue flames and remembered the settlement. The fact they were still alive told Justice there was hope for them yet.
His brain spun furiously. Whether she was goddess, spawn, or mere mortal, he would not be bested by any woman. Everyone had a price. He wondered what he had that might buy their lives and their freedom, but whatever he gave her, it would be on his terms. Information, perhaps. But about what?
“You dare attack the goddesses’ faithful in the Godseeker Mountains?” he asked the woman, careful to sound curious rather than confrontational. He made an oblique reference to the ill-fated village and its burned-down temple and wondered if she would address it.
Her mouth twisted in an unpleasant smile. “You’d be surprised who has been living peacefully amongst the faithful for years, only to be attacked by them first, and without provocation, when they revealed themselves.”
Justice pondered her words. He knew demons hated spawn even more than mortal men, and spawn who valued their lives would have hidden their existence from mortal and immortal alike. But with the departure of the immortals they grew bolder.
And this one was seeking revenge. Justice could almost smell it on her.
Sweat dripped down his back as the ring of fire tightened around them. If it was revenge against the faithful she sought, then his being a Godseeker would not save their lives.
Being Raven’s stepfather might. It depended how he played that card.
“I wouldn’t be as surprised as you might think. My stepdaughter is spawn,” he said, watching carefully for her reaction.
Interest spiked in her eyes, although not her tone, which remained hard. “What do I care what your stepdaughter is?”
“She survived among the faithful for years too, and without discovery, until the
demons departed. I’m trying to find her now and bring her home.”
“What will happen to her if you do?”
He tried to sift out the response that would best win her over. She was suspicious of his motives, which was to be expected. “She’s all I have left of her mother. I’ll continue to care for her, as I always have.”
The woman spun the flames, making them twirl like burning blue dust devils. The flames were captured in her eyes, giving them a peculiar cast that made the sweat turn to ice as it trickled along his spine.
“How odd it is, then,” she said, “that just a few short weeks ago, a Godseeker publicly denounced his stepdaughter as a spawn and attempted to burn her alive.” She tipped her head to one side. A private smile danced on her lips. “Would you like to know how many more spawn have been living in these goddess-forsaken mountains for so many years, safe from their demon fathers?”
She waded closer through the melting snow and thick layer of fog, the hem of her skirt dragging in the slush her passage created, and the fiery ring shrank even tighter around them. Justice felt the flesh on his face begin to sear, and steam curled from his soaked clothing.
“We can make a run for it through the flames,” Cage said. His cheeks had grown shining red, yet he, too, stood his ground.
“No. We wait.” Justice did not intend for either of them to break. A panicked dash through demon fire would not save them. If anything, it would most likely give this half demon pleasure. No one burned a village full of people to death the way she had unless they enjoyed inflicting pain and suffering on others.
“Were there spawn among the villagers you burned?” he asked her.
Malicious joy twisted her features. “Only the ones who wouldn’t join me.”
“My stepdaughter won’t join you, either. She’s already enslaved two assassins in the short time she’s been free,” Justice added. “What do you suppose that says about her abilities? And her intentions? Why would she need to join you?”
The woman hesitated. The gyrating flames became less kinetic and their blistering heat abated to an almost bearable level. He speculated as to the extent of her demon abilities. If fire was all the talent she possessed, then that would explain why she needed others to join her.
It did not explain how she had managed to gather all those people into the temple and keep them from escaping while she burned them alive. She had not tried to hold either him or Cage in thrall, so that was unlikely an ability she possessed in any significant amount.
Whatever her objective, she needed allies to achieve it.
He pressed on. “I want my daughter back. If you help me, I can guarantee you safe passage out of these mountains in return. I have no interest in what you did, or do, other than that you do it elsewhere. The Godseeker assassins will be hunting you soon enough. They already know about one village you destroyed by demon fire, and they’ll be prepared for you to do it again. Are your other demon talents enough to keep you alive?”
“I have any number of talents you know nothing about.” She spoke with bravado, but the increasingly erratic shift of the flames indicated to Justice that she worked hard at maintaining them.
The flames began to recede. He tasted victory.
The woman spoke a few words that he could not quite interpret. A second circle of fire joined the first, touching so that they created a giant figure eight. An enormous, crouching figure materialized in the second ring, its shadowy presence flickering unnervingly in the flaming night.
It straightened to more than eight feet in height. Massive biceps curled from shoulders broad enough to support the weight of a full-grown hross.
Justice’s elation soured, and Cage tensed beside him.
“What?” the woman asked, as if enjoying their surprise. She lowered a hand to her hip and arched an eyebrow upward. She glanced at the demon, then back to the two men still contained by fire in one half of the conjoined circles. “Did you think I traveled alone?”
Chapter Fourteen
Blade tossed another piece of damp wood on the sputtering and smoldering flames while keeping an observant eye on the three men and one woman seated around the fire with them. He did not miss the nervous way the men regarded him in return.
They had reason to be wary—he did not trust them. He wished they had continued on their way and ignored Raven’s pleas for open discussion. Since they had not, he’d warned her to keep the location of Roam’s mountain village to herself. When she tried to argue, he had pointed out that there were other villages in the mountains where they could seek refuge. The one Roam had spoken of was far too close to the assassins to be safe for too many people, and they had no idea of the actual numbers Roam had already contacted.
Sitting cross-legged on the cold ground, Blade yawned and blinked, his eyelids dragging grit across his eyes. It had been a long and trying day, but his helplessness when Raven was attacked left him hyperaware—he would not sleep well with these people here. The shadows interwoven amongst the skeletal trees of the desolate valley enhanced his unease. He expected them to come to life at any moment. Full demons could not hold their monster forms when close to Raven, but these spawn seemed able to hold their shadow around her with no trouble at all.
A pale, silver moon, blurred by the bleak night sky, reflected in broken bits and pieces of shimmering light off the rippled black waters of the lake below. The soft sounds of waves lapping at the shoreline filled the drawn-out pauses interspersed between the women’s chatter.
The men had not introduced themselves, so Blade had not bothered, either. He knew the woman’s name was Laurel only because Raven had somehow drawn it from her thoughts, and repeated it in a quiet, soothing manner that generated calm.
Laurel was a good deal older than the men, and although perhaps not quite old enough to be their mother, she would at least pass for an older sister. All four shared a familial resemblance in the light brown coloring of their hair and an attractive, although unremarkable, cornflower blue to their eyes. Even though the men allowed Laurel to speak for them, which in itself was unusual, they did not seem to know each other especially well. Blade guessed their physical resemblance had been passed to them by a common demon ancestor since they all shared a talent for shifting to shadow. Other than that, their connection did not seem close, and they appeared to have come together out of necessity. He knew Raven felt pity for them and a degree of affinity. They, too, traveled higher into these mountains to find safety.
It was as Roam had warned—throughout the world, demon spawn had begun to emerge from hiding. And not all of them were harmless. While Blade appreciated the precariousness of their situation, he did not plan to make their troubles his. It would be difficult enough for him to conceal Raven from experienced trackers. But four more people?
“I don’t understand,” Raven was saying to Laurel. Confusion crackled in her pretty eyes. “You say a woman destroyed your village?”
“You don’t believe that women can be evil?” Blade interrupted.
Raven looked at him, her aggravation with him plain to see in her expression. “Of course they can. What I find hard to believe is that any woman—or man—could do such a thing alone.”
One of the men darted a glance into the shadows, then eased closer to the fire. “She didn’t act alone,” he said. “She raised a demon to do it for her.”
Blade’s splayed hands tightened on his knees. He was wide-awake now. This was not welcome news.
“I would never have believed it possible now that demons have been banished from the world,” Laurel added. Her voice shook. “But it seems that somehow, this woman can raise them. She arrived at the village and claimed to be a goddess. A few little tricks, and she had everyone convinced.” Tears sparkled in her eyes. “I didn’t really believe in her, but I didn’t dare go to the temple with the others, just in case she’d know what I was and reveal me. I couldn’t convince my husband not to go, though, and he insisted on taking the children.” The tears dripped off her las
hes and onto her cheeks. “I couldn’t very well say anything to him, could I? How could I tell him his children had demon blood, even if only a little?” Raven reached for her hand and clasped it tightly. “We all lost at least someone,” Laurel added, looking at the others. “We met up afterward, when we went back to look for survivors. That was when we realized we have something in common.”
Blade did not want to sympathize with them. A lot of people experienced tragedy in their lives and survived.
“How did she raise the demon?” he asked.
Laurel looked at him, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”
“She has to control it somehow,” he said. “What did she do? Was there a ritual of some kind?”
“I can’t remember.” Laurel passed a hand over her eyes in an unconscious attempt to wipe away images only she could see.
Blade knew she might never remember the details of that day simply because she did not want to, and he did not blame her for it. Replaying the tragedy would not bring her family and friends back.
But it nagged at him that this woman spawn she spoke of had raised a demon. Raven’s father had wanted her to summon him, too, and he would not want such a thing unless he knew he’d be in control. It made no sense otherwise.
“Fire,” the man who had spoken before said. “She called the demon into a circle of blue fire that surrounded the temple.”
Such a circle would have been enormous. Now, Blade really did not believe she had done it on her own. He rubbed his temple with the heel of one palm, trying to think logically with a brain that was too tired to function.
“I’ve seen demons raised,” he said. It was not something that could ever be forgotten. “But by a priestess who invoked the protection of both the Demon Lord and the goddesses. Her circles were made of sanctified water that demons couldn’t cross. I’m not convinced demon fire alone could really contain one, at least not for long.”
“It must,” Raven said. “No demon would allow itself to be held if it had a choice.”
Black Widow Demon (Demon Outlaws) Page 19