One of the bodyguards growled. The sound made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Christophe liked it when people were afraid of him, and his magehelds were good at being mean and nasty.
The mage didn’t dress like royalty. He dressed like a professional slacker. He wore the same clothes he’d had on when she’d gotten to him earlier in the evening: black zip-up hoodie, unzipped, black jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. He was slender, just shy of six feet tall. With his head of curly dark hair and his boyish face, he was a good-looking man. A row of piercings lined the outer edge of one ear. In one form or another—stud, bead, cabochon, or faceted gem—each earring contained a ruby.
One of Christophe’s favorite tricks was cranking up the desperation in the people around him, enhancing feelings of hopelessness, amplifying insecurities. She’d always thought of it as the emotional equivalent of pulling the wings off insects. Usually, she wasn’t susceptible. She’d learned the hard way how to shield herself. Right now, none of her defenses were in place. With Christophe’s magic pulling at her like an undertow, she fought to stay free.
“All will be well,” the demon said in a low voice. He released her and stood on the sidewalk like he didn’t have a worry in the world. Cold air swept over her skin where his fingers had been. Despite the lack of physical contact, a spot at the base of her skull tingled with an awareness of him. She did her best to shut it out, but she didn’t have much luck.
Christophe and his magehelds kept walking toward them. The demon slipped his key into his trouser pocket and left that hand hanging free at his side. She didn’t realize she’d backed up until her legs hit the side of the car. The minute she came in contact with the cold metal, an unpleasant realization slammed into her.
The demon had been messing with her mind. Soothing her. Eroding her natural suspicions. Christophe’s appearance here wasn’t any coincidence. He’d lied to her about not being mageheld, and right now he was relaxed because he’d known all along this would happen. He was going to give her back to Christophe.
She said, “Screw you.”
He turned his head to get a look at her, eyebrows lifted. “I beg your pardon?”
“Your word, my ass. I never should have listened to you. Never. You planned this.” She shot a glance in Christophe’s direction. “Meeting up with him.”
His eyes narrowed at her. “No.”
“I won’t go back.” She looked around the darkened street. There wasn’t much chance she could escape. The demon had planted himself in front of her, ostensibly to put himself between her and Christophe, but the fact was, his position blocked her in. She didn’t think that was a coincidence. Even if she managed to slide from behind him and run for it, Christophe would just send one of his magehelds after her.
Whoever he sent would catch her. If she knew Christophe at all, he’d have given the mageheld wide latitude about what he could do to her when he caught up.
She’d rather die.
“Christophe,” the fiend said in a voice that was nothing but reason and patience. “What is this?”
She took long, slow breaths to calm herself. Her chest hollowed out and the magic she had got all tangled up inside her in one big painful knot of tension that she had no idea how to release. Her right arm twitched as whatever the hell those markings were curled and slid underneath her skin.
The mage stopped walking. “Fiend.”
“Good evening.” The demon’s voice was calm, but he managed to sound annoyed. The back of her head crackled with electricity. He walked forward like Christophe had no power to harm him.
Christophe had come to a stop in the dip of a driveway. Behind him was a white stucco house with a wooden gate to one side that would lead to the rear of the house. If she got close enough while they were distracted with each other, she could jump the gate and take off, one backyard after another.
That was if her first strike made it through Christophe’s heart. She wasn’t going to delude herself there was any way she could get free without killing the mage. If he didn’t die, she was as good as caught. And then she was as good as dead. If she was lucky.
She was counting on the likelihood that the magehelds would fight the compulsion to save Christophe once he was dying because when it was over, they’d be free. They wouldn’t come after her, or else they’d stop if they were in pursuit when he died. The only one she needed to escape from after that was the freak in black, and that meant she had to be fast. An adrenaline rush would propel her once the mage was down and hopefully she could vault over that gate while the magehelds were disoriented from the dissolving bond to their mage.
Or, things could go terribly wrong and she’d die. Or the demon could stop her and she’d die. Either one was better than ending up back with Christophe. She scanned the area again, trying to pick out where he might have stashed more magehelds.
Some ten feet past the mage, an elm tree shadowed the sidewalk and street. She could just barely make out the mageheld lurking in the dark. She felt him more than she saw him. His magic drew her notice and, in some bizarre way she didn’t yet understand, she saw the mageheld more clearly because of that.
Two of the mageheld bodyguards split off from Christophe. One of them walked a few paces into the street, blocking off the most obvious escape route. The other one took up a position at the opposite corner of the block. The one lurking by the tree was probably too far away to stop her. That left the three who kept themselves glued to Christophe. And the demon she wasn’t entirely sure about. Maybe he wouldn’t care once Christophe was dead.
She stuck her hand in her back pocket to palm the metal pick there. With the side of her thumb, she worked off the wad of tape that blunted the sharp end. Duct tape wound around the other end provided her with a grip. The demon hadn’t looked around her head quite thoroughly enough to find out she had it. Shooting Christophe hadn’t been her only option. Just the easiest.
She poked a finger on the business end of her makeshift weapon and yes, the tip was damned sharp. If she was going to die tonight, she was sure as heck going to do her best to take Christophe with her.
The buzzing in her chest from all the magic she couldn’t do anything with had settled into a constant, low-grade vibration. The back of her head, however, wouldn’t stop tingling. In fact, the sensation got worse. For half a second, she considered stabbing the demon before she went after Christophe, but there was no way she’d do him fatal injury even if it turned out she was fast enough. Christophe needed to go down. Anyone else was a waste of time.
The moment her decision clicked into place, she was just as calm as the demon appeared to be. Earlier in the day, when she’d ambushed Christophe with her black-market Magnum—she’d bought the biggest gun she could afford—she’d had a similar reaction. All her fear just slid away, leaving her in a state of hyper-awareness. No emotions to get in the way. She saw better, her mind worked faster. Just like now. She knew exactly how she was going to do this.
The freak in black turned his back on Christophe. From experience Gray knew that wasn’t wise; turning your back on a mage. She admired his balls for doing it, though. The fiend got close enough to her to touch her if he wanted. The tingle in the back of her head flashed hot.
He outranks me.
He can crush me without trying.
She felt like a goddamned dog being forced to acknowledge the alpha wolf.
“Try anything with the mage,” he said in a low voice, “and I will terminate you, whether you are a witch or not.”
She gripped her pick, keeping her hand behind her back. Her stomach tied itself into one monstrous knot, but she didn’t acknowledge the reaction. “Stay out of my head, you freak. And while you’re at it, take your fancy clothes and your bad attitude and go to hell.”
“I did not lie to you, Gray.”
She made a point of looking around his shoulder at Christophe. “Oh, look, there’s Christophe. And seven of his biggest, meanest magehelds.” She tipped her chin up to look into
his face. “I don’t give a shit what you want.”
She didn’t. She really didn’t. All she wanted was her chance to take down Christophe for what he’d done to Tigran, and to her, and her sister, and make sure he didn’t ever do it to anyone else.
A smile curved the assassin’s austere mouth. For some reason that made her awareness of him feel like a living thing, echoing there in the back of her head. “Then you will be dead, and Christophe will still be alive.”
Gray stared into eyes so dark they were nearly black. His lashes were insanely long. If he were human, she’d be thinking his eyes were pretty. But he wasn’t. All he was right now was in her way.
“Tell me, Grayson Spencer, is that the revenge you planned? To leave him alive and Tigran unavenged?”
He didn’t wait for her answer. He turned his back on her and faced the mage. She had the unsettling feeling he knew all about her makeshift pick but didn’t consider it enough of a threat to bother with. She glared at his back and thought, as hard and as intensely as she could: bastard.
If he picked up on her epithet, he gave no sign of it.
Christophe and the three magehelds who’d stayed close to him took up the entire sidewalk and then some. If this broke into a fight, how the hell were they going to keep mundane humans from seeing something they shouldn’t? From what she’d seen and heard from Tigran, that was one rule the magekind took seriously: Never let the vanillas know there was any such thing as magic.
At this time of night there wasn’t much traffic, but there wasn’t none, either. They were on a residential side street so there was less chance someone would come along. Less, but not none. In her experience, though, people didn’t like it when you stood under their windows in the dark morning hours and carried on a conversation. Idiots on the street late at night were never as quiet as they thought.
“Is there something you need, Christophe?” the fiend asked.
“You have her in custody.” He rubbed his hands together. “Excellent.”
His English was accented, but the accent tended to come and go. Most of the time he sounded British. Every so often, particularly if he was angry, he lapsed into French-accented English or, even, outright French.
The fiend lifted his hands. “She is here, as you can see. As to custody? I’m not sure what you mean.”
The air took on an electric buzz that sizzled along her arms and down her spine. Underneath her skin, the whorls of green slithered and twisted more and more quickly. Sweat trickled down her back. The fiend became a blazing awareness in her head.
At last, Christophe’s attention settled on her. The vibration in her chest kicked up. Her heart skipped a beat and then another and another. He could do things no ordinary mageborn person could. With no effort at all, he could pull magic that would kill her in horrific fashion.
The fiend moved, and she had a clear shot to Christophe dit Menart.
She gripped her metal pick hard.
Now or never.
CHAPTER 4
Durian’s awareness of the woman deepened. He moved until he was blocking her line of sight to the mage. If she’d had any idea what she was, Christophe would have died this afternoon. The murdered fiend Tigran had been quite strong. He had to have been to manage what he’d done to her. Her survival spoke volumes to her own resources and fortitude. Few humans could have survived.
He doubted dit Menart fully understood what Tigran had accomplished. The mage did, however, understand quite well that Gray now possessed what he’d intended to take for himself. The power and the extension of life that went with the taking of a fiend’s life was now Gray’s, and Christophe dit Menart was furious. So furious he wasn’t blocking his emotions. And perhaps not thinking clearly, either.
“What have you done to yourself, Anna?”
“I don’t answer to Anna anymore.”
“Whatever you’re calling yourself now, I hardly recognize you.” He took five long paces toward her, his three nearest magehelds keeping pace. He affected a look of considered appraisal as he gazed past Durian to where she stood. Indeed, the mage was not thinking clearly. There was more than fury in the emotions Durian was getting from the mage.
The woman had walled herself off psychically. The source of her expertise in mental blocks was appallingly clear. The defense was a skill even vanilla humans quickly learned if they spent much time around the kin, mageheld or free. Right now, he got nothing from her, and that concerned him. Certain humans became abnormally calm in a crisis, quick, clear thinkers when most others were not. Just his luck. Gray, it appeared, was one of those.
He was afraid she intended something rash or unfortunate. Probably both. And that her current mental state meant she would be able to carry out whatever attack she intended. Durian very much wanted to learn how she had survived both Tigran and Christophe. If he had to kill her tonight, he’d never find out. “Send your magehelds away so that we may discuss matters peacefully, Christophe. They needn’t go far.” He pointed to the street corner. “Just there is sufficient.”
“I think not.”
“The situation with the human is well in hand,” he said. “You are safe now.” Durian might as well have called him a coward outright and Christophe knew it, because his mouth thinned. Durian kept back a grin. One took one’s pleasures where possible.
So far, Gray was keeping herself under control, but he didn’t expect that would last. She still intended to kill Christophe. If he were in her place, he’d feel the same. He admired her commitment, if not the trouble she was causing him.
The mage’s smile hardened. “Need I remind you,” he said, “that Nikodemus gave me his word? In his territory, the magekind are to be safe from harm by those of your ilk.”
Durian nodded and studiously ignored Gray’s startlement. “I am not in need of any reminders of my duty, mage.”
She shot him a poisonous look. Durian ignored that, too.
“I intend to lodge a complaint over the events of tonight.”
Gray inched closer to Durian, but only because she was trying to get close to Christophe. One of the magehelds swung around, spearing her with a savage look.
She had a weapon of some sort. He’d felt her burst of satisfaction when she eased whatever it was from her pocket. In his opinion, Gray had the right idea. Christophe dit Menart needed to die. If it weren’t for his oaths to Nikodemus, he’d let her try again.
He was inclined to think her experience with Christophe and his magehelds meant she didn’t understand the free kin at all. She had, therefore, both over- and underestimated what Durian could and would do. Killing her would be a shame.
“You came to no harm this evening, mage.” He understood the politics of Nikodemus’s agreement. Hell, he’d helped forge the agreement himself. But there were times when the worthy goal of creating a peace in which the centuries of enmity between magekind and demonkind were, if not forgotten, then set aside, seemed unobtainable. Such as now.
“Malfeasants must be punished.” Christophe hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans, leaving his fingers to curve around his pockets. The sleeves of his hoodie hid the tattoos that ran up his arm—real ones old enough to have faded to pale blue-black, but there were several more words inked on the undersides of his fingers. “I’ll take the woman, if you please.”
“No,” Durian said. He had ideas of his own about what to do with Gray Spencer.
“As a courtesy to me,” the mage said. “For my inconvenience tonight.”
Gray pushed past him, her shoulder brushing Durian’s arm as she did. Her mental control was far too tidy. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s go right now.”
She was lying, of course. He knew she had no intention of going anywhere with Christophe. Her lie would get her close enough to try to kill the mage.
With a sigh of regret, Durian grabbed her shoulder and stopped her half a second before she lunged. The magehelds couldn’t tell he was using magic to keep her still, but Christophe surely could. “I must w
arn you, mage. She is determined to do you fatal harm. If she were to go with you, I cannot guarantee your safety.”
“She’s a woman.” The mage waved a hand, flashing the tattoos on his palm and fingers.
She jabbed backward with an elbow, but Durian evaded her. “Let go.”
Christophe walked closer but stopped just out of her reach. And his. The three magehelds nearest to him shadowed his movements. Durian’s fingers tightened over her shoulder. The mage looked at her, but she didn’t flinch. “Still so lovely,” he said in a low voice. “Despite the alterations.”
He felt the burn of Christophe’s magic along his skin. The magic wasn’t directed at him. The mage was attacking her, going after her magic in an attempt to take her mageheld. She doubled over and without thinking, Durian dropped his block of the natural connection between the kin. The agony of what Christophe was doing to her ripped through him like a blade. He slipped into her head to do what he could to help her. There was only so much of the pain he could divert to himself before his own status was compromised.
Durian said, “It is not wise to use your magic here, Christophe. Or in this manner.”
The mage kept walking a perimeter around them, turning his head to watch Gray. As a human, he might easily be taken for a slacker one paycheck away from being on the street. “If I choose to take her, fiend, do you think you can stop me?” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “More to the point, once I’ve formally lodged my protest, do you think Nikodemus will allow you to keep her?”
Under the terms of the agreement, no more kin were to be enslaved. There were exceptions of course, on both sides, but the bald fact—the controversial result—was that the powerful mages were being allowed to keep the magehelds they had. Durian understood the conditions handed down had been necessary. This was the hallmark of diplomacy; no one liked the way things were, but everyone was willing to see the other side accept unpalatable conditions. Most of them recognized this perverted situation was better than war.
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