by Ashur Rose
Asshole had no idea when she slipped her hand down the front of his cargo shorts that it wasn’t to stroke his cock, but instead to give him a taste of that power. Nothing too serious or obvious, but enough to irritate the hell out of his personal demon and singe a few hairs.
“Fuuuuck!” he screamed, pushing Lilith from his lap.
She stepped back a few feet and smirked. “Something wrong?”
“You bitch! You—You burned me?” Cradling his crotch, he looked to Lilith’s empty hand, and then to his friends. His squad stared at him with equally dumb expressions. “The bitch burned me!”
That’s when Asshole came hurling toward Lilith, knocking down a table in the process. He’d almost reached her when Big D, one of the club’s bouncers, placed him in a full nelson.
“Problem, Lil?”
“I think he and his friends had too much to drink. They’re done for tonight.”
“Bullshit,” Asshole yelled, squirming against Big D’s hold with no luck. They didn’t call Big D “Big D” for nothing. “She burned my fucking balls!”
Big D gave him a confused look. “Say what, Joe? How much have you had to dri—know what? Doesn’t matter. Out. Now.”
Big D shoved him toward the door and the rest of his frat followed.
Big D adjusted his security shirt collar. The scuffle, though short, caused sweat to bead on his bald head. “If you can’t hold your alcohol—”
“—don’t drink,” Lilith finished.
“Exactly. You good?”
“Yeah. I’m good.” Lilith fist bumped his shoulder. “Thanks.”
She washed up behind the bar before loading her next table’s drinks onto her tray. A crew of women celebrated passing their nursing exams by raining dollar bills on their private dancer. That should’ve been Lilith. The nurses. Not the dancer. Before her mom died, both of her parents were paramedics and she had always found saving people’s lives thrilling. But all that had changed when she’d ascended, when hopping from town to town to escape demons and one persistent shifter became her new norm. It wasn’t exactly the life she saw for herself at twenty-two.
At closing, she tipped out the bar and headed to the locker room full of half-naked women tossing bras and stilettos into gym bags.
“Hey, Lil?”
Lilith looked up at the petite blonde. “’Sup, Shell?”
“We’re getting Waffle House to go. Wanna order something?”
The thought of waffles made Lilith’s stomach growl. Too bad her pockets were just as starved. “I’m beat. Gonna jet home and get some sleep.”
“You need a lift?” Shelby asked. “Your building’s on my way out of the city.”
“Go on without me. I need the walk.” Her feet begged to differ.
“All right, chick.”
Lilith pulled her blue sweatpants over her stockings, leaving the dress to hang, and slid into her tennis shoes. The heavy smell of smoke clung to her, so she left her hoodie unzipped to air out as she walked up Towner Boulevard on her way to the old Baptist church on Twelfth Street. The chilly streets were abnormally busy for this time of night. The clubs were closing, which left the drunks to hail cabs or vomit on the curbs.
Street vendors and musicians were packing up, but people still crowded the sidewalks. Instinctively, Lilith pulled her hood over her head and kept her eyes to the ground. She knew these streets well. She could get to the church on Twelfth with her eyes closed, but that wasn’t practical. She just needed to not make too much eye contact.
Unfortunately, personal demons weren’t exclusive to the customers of Serendipity. Drawing too much attention could easily cause them to try to attack. No matter that they couldn’t hurt her, it was their attempts that concerned her the most. Get enough personal demons after you, and all that commotion was bound to alert the big boys. And Lilith didn’t want those problems.
She popped another antacid to quell the fire inside her chest. Must’ve been the city water because since she’d moved here three months ago, she’d kept the corner store near her apartment empty of Rolaids.
She laced through the foot traffic, keeping her hands deep in her jacket pockets. Nearly three blocks left and she’d be at the church and home free. Three marvelous blocks to a hot shower and beef-flavored ramen noodles. She crossed the street, calculating the distance in her head, when a white Range Rover stopped beside her.
“Hey, bitch!”
She stopped to see who’d thrown the insult her way. All the hazy eyes peeping from the SUV’s windows looked familiar and that was because she’d served them tonight in Serendipity’s.
The heckler sat on the passenger side, pointing his finger at her while holding a Waffle House cup. “Asshole,” she said dryly.
She kept walking, ignoring the insults he hurled her way. They came harsh and loud and then they didn’t come at all.
Silence.
The SUV hadn’t passed her. It was with that thought that Lilith turned around to a red-faced, cargo-short-wearing frat-hole charging her way.
She took a deep breath. “Great.”
“I was talking”—he staggered—“to you.”
She quickly looked around to the people walking by and decided she didn’t want an audience to see her break this guy’s face. So she tried to reason with him, whereas a normal person would have run.
“Look, you’re pretty trashed and things got out of hand tonight. Just...take my apology and go.”
He grabbed her, his hand was clenched around the sleeve of her jacket. His breath was hot and acerbic with maple syrup undertones. Waffle House. Fucking Waffle House, she thought.
“Fuck your apology. You burned my balls.”
The personal demon swarming around his body lashed out and hissed in her presence. It was pissed and with the change in venue, the evil thing had an opportunity to do something about it.
Asshole’s friends inside the SUV looked on for about as long as they could before approaching traffic forced them to drive off. The crowds were starting to stop and stare. Only a matter of time before their inner demons started to get riled up and Lilith would have a real issue on her hands. So when Asshole insisted with a shove that she move into the alley between two stores, she did so willingly.
“You’re gonna make it better,” said Asshole, fumbling with the zipper of his pants. “You and your goddamn mouth are gonna make it better.”
He placed his hands on either side of Lilith’s shoulders and forced her down to her knees. Or at least, the poor bastard tried too.
“So freaking cliché,” Lilith said as she kneed him in the groin. He stumbled backward with a whimper, holding his crotch. “I mean, really, is there no originality anymore? Does every jerk”—she performed a palm drive to his nose—“and asshole”—she executed a push kick to the knee—“attend the same Jerk and Asshole class?”
Once she had him on his knees panting, she lifted his head up by his ridiculously gelled hair. “Wait, wait…” he pleaded with snotty blood streaming down his chin.
“Listen, guy, I just wanted go home, wash the night off, and eat some ramen. Maybe even have a beer. I’m going leave you here. Don’t follow—”
The clank of a fire escape ladder dropping stopped her cold. The lights in the alley dimmed and flickered. She looked down the alley and didn’t see anyone. Shit. She looked back to Asshole and noticed his PD was gone. Double shit. Something big was coming.
“Get up,” she told him.
“I-I-I think you broke my knee.”
Invisible footfalls ran through the puddles of water in the alley, rushing closer to her.
She wanted to, God she wanted to, but she couldn’t leave the sick bastard there. It would’ve evened the scales, considering what he’d tried to make her do, but even this jerk didn’t deserve what could happen to him if she did.
“Get your sorry ass up, frat boy, or a broken knee is going to be the least of your worries.”
She yanked him to his good leg and he hopped in place, ho
lding the bridge of his nose. The footfalls grew louder. Lilith braced herself. From the sound of it, it was huge. She held her hand palm out in front of her while dragging Asshole back to the front of the alley. Filthy water splashed her face as something leapt into the dirty puddle in front of them.
“Jeeeezus Christ, what was—”
“Shhh!”
She cupped his mouth and looked around her. Everything appeared normal. She couldn’t think of a reason why it would have backed off, but she was grateful. Maybe it wasn’t as strong as she imagined. She looked back to Asshole and removed her hand.
“You need to go now,” she told him.
He nodded, darting nervous glances all around him as he limped backward. “I didn’t mean anything by what I said earlier, okay. Fuck, I’m so sorr—”
The rest of his lame apology hung in his throat. He reached for his neck, trying to remove something she couldn’t see. It pinned him to the brick wall, lifting him off his feet.
“Damn it.” Lilith took a deep breath and rushed to the wall. As soon as she wrapped her fingers around the invisible hands constricting his neck, she instantly regretted not running when she’d had the chance. She was about to do something stupid, something that could come back to bite her in the ass. Literally. She would have to use her speak, and not in the cute way she’d had at the club tonight when she burned Asshole’s balls. She would have to use more.
Light, so brilliant it caused Asshole’s irises to shrink when he stared at it, blossomed from Lilith’s palms. Guttural, otherworldly screams filled her ears as she peeled the unseen hands away. Asshole fell to the alley floor, heaving vomit as he crawled toward the sidewalk.
She stepped back with both her hands held in front of her like the weapons they were and pulsated a hot, blue flaming streak in the direction of the yowling. The fire left charred skin clinging to an otherwise-invisible face. She could make out a nose, sockets for eyes, and thin lips curled into a grimace. She should have killed the thing, but that required time, which she didn’t have. She used enough of her speak to stun it into submission, then left it yelping in the alley and fled to the sidewalk.
She pulled her hoodie down over her eyes as far as it would go and shouldered through the maze of bodies on the sidewalk. Her hands were still warm with her speak and the sensation set her nerves on edge. It wasn’t uncommon for them to smart on occasion when around enough personal demons, but this was different. They were downright throbbing with her power. The reason became clear when she peeked over her shoulder and laid eyes on a demon horde running after her.
CHAPTER THREE
IAIN
IAIN LANDED IN THE shadows of a building and shrunk his wings. He wrapped his bare chest with his trench coat and negotiated the street by sound, moving slowly to soak the night into his pores. His eyes slipped across the crowd of humanity. The stares of the shapeless colors bore into his skin like daggers. Their essence so near to the surface, his fingers trembled to cull. If they had only a hint of his hunger, the distance they would keep from him…
The slow, painful process of turning had begun to take its toll. There was a real possibility the turning would complete if he didn’t find his pure. But he had planned for such a contingency. His end would be of his own volition—in the old ways of his warrior people.
Death by combat.
And the filthy Nether rejects seethed to do it. Listening. Hungry. The boldest of them blending with the crowd beneath a cloak no human could see. The shades of the under realm had clever ways of escaping topside to wreak havoc on the humans, and even cleverer was how they’d breached Empyrean during those years of the Great Purge. Hundreds of his realm folk had been slaughtered in the ambush, their deaths the weight that anchored him and his brothers to this world.
A bit of attention was all he needed to draw them nearer now. The claws of his wings flexed in anticipation.
Iain stepped into the street, stopping midway into the busy crosswalk. Horns blared impatiently as he peeled open his coat. He would need the last of his strength to summon his battle spectra to the surface. One glimpse would bring the shades crawling.
Drivers swore, demanding he move. But he stayed and brought his gaze back to the masses, baring his chest, when a glow of white stopped him cold.
The incessant horns and curses faded in the background. He could no longer move. All his attention fixed on the peculiar, darting glow in front of him. Pure white, like nothing he had ever seen in this realm. But the smell was undeniable…like black currant.
Iain’s spectra burned unbidden inside of him. As if the white glow were summoning him nearer, Iain closed his coat and followed.
The darkness of the shades matched his eagerness, following the glow step for step before disappearing between two buildings. Iain parted through the crowd, shouldering away the indigos, oranges, and greens. It was with only one thought that he stood at the alleyway entrance through which the glow had vanished:
Mine.
There she was, surrounded by a circle of full dark shades. He moved stealthily toward the still figure, blending in with the shadows. The wind rustling trash at his feet, the moans of rusted pipes, the distinct smell of decay and waste heightened his senses into overload. His awareness grew more predator-like, more menacing…more Bane.
He wondered briefly at what had brought her to this plane. The realm folk of Empyrean had little use for this world—unless she too was banished.
Iain inventoried the shades silently while swathed in shadow. Six. Four surrounded his pure; two perched on top of fire escapes, hiding. He waited for the ideal moment to attack, the moment his pure would flee for her life so that he could pick them off one by one.
He hadn’t expected what came next.
“It’ll take more than six of you.” The sound of her voice made his cock jump. It was steady, lethal and wholly feminine. She not only continued to speak, but also waved in the direction of the shades in hiding, challenging them.
“Don’t be shy,” she said to the perched shades. “Bring your scraggly asses down and join the party.”
She displayed the confidence of a warrior maiden of Empyrean. Damn, would he be so lucky?
Iain could not take his gaze away from her, so mesmerized was he. How could a single voice raise so much havoc within him? It was in this selfish moment that the darkness converged on her. The instant it took Iain to descend from his reverie was too late. They swarmed her.
He should run to her now. He should seek and waste the darkness like so much garbage. Warrior maiden or not, the last thing Iain expected was for her to stand her ground alone. For her to fend off a shade with a mysterious force issuing from her hands.
Iain edged closer, careful not to announce himself to the shades or startle his pure. He steered clear of her, removing his gloves, unveiling the true potential of his hands. With ease, he snatched a shade by its throat. He could feel its demonic essence swirling beneath his fingertips, awaiting harvest. His touch told him this was a young one, inexperienced, and it would soon pay the price for such shortcomings. A quick snap of its neck finished it for now.
He glanced to his pure keeping a shade at bay with the power of her hands. The two from the fire escapes thudded behind her. In one lilting move, Iain crossed the distance and possessed their necks. He strangled them while keeping his gaze on her, cautious not to disturb her work. Faces frozen in silent screams, he tossed the shades’ miserable bodies aside.
Iain waited for her to finish. He took care in watching the female engage in brief hand-to-hand combat with her opponents. She fought well, even if her technique was coarse and raw. He looked on, mesmerized by her crude style. He waited for the corpse beneath her hands to fall, and for her to face him. Her proximity made his spectra ache with need, driving him to reach out to her from beyond the shadows. He only needed to touch her once and she would know.
As she turned and took in the sight of him, she quickly staggered backward with glowing hands aimed at his chest.
“State your species, asshole. I’ll let you know right now I’m partial to demons,” she said.
Demon? Iain withdrew his hand. Only humans referred to shades as “demons.” But she was clearly far from human. She was something more. She was his goddamn pure.
He stepped forward, his disheveled white and black tresses spilling over his forehead as he took in her form. He may have been blind, but his spectra had never failed him. It built in his core the closer he approached her. No being had ever been able to tune into his spectra like this. Not without his consent.
“Had anyone else called me a demon, they’d be beneath my hands right now,” he answered. The scent of black currant overwhelmed him, nearly drowning out all his working senses.
The female hesitated and let her hands fall to her sides. “Who are you?”
He frowned. “Who am I?” His eyes roamed over her form. She must have felt his pull as equally as he felt hers. There was no way she could be a part of him and not know it.
He poised his lips to answer but clamped them in surprise as darkness rose behind him. He steeled himself, ready to cut short some lives, but try as he might, he couldn’t take his eyes away from her. For Phyrss’ sake, he wasn’t fucking blinking.
Without warning, the woman lifted her hands and past Iain, a steady stream of blue flowed from her palms. Iain stared on, his fingers trembling with need. A hint of her essence brushed over his skin as the stream dashed past him. He wanted to touch her, let his fingers taste what he knew must be true—that she was his. But he was hesitant. If she was human, touching her would cull her essence, and although he didn’t know this woman, he felt very deeply that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if his touch brought her harm.
His eyes darted behind him at a shade collapsing from her power. Shades had unusual hunting habits, but they never came in packs. What had called them to this place?
His pure discharged her power a final time before calling out to Iain. “Look, I don’t normally do shit like this, but what do you say I get you out of here?”