by Misty Evans
“Got it.” She left the room.
“Cole, call Hone and have him take Victoria to the Institute. She’ll be safe there.”
He snatched his cell from his pocket and I could see he was annoyed that he’d been using that more than his gun in the past few hours. “You think the vamp will go after her?”
She was my blood slave. Killing her and Arman would weaken me in more ways than one. Losing my connection to them would weaken me physically since they’d taken my blood. Not having blood slaves would weaken my tenuous run for Nudra’s spot. Not that I wanted to be a vamp queen, nor did I want blood slaves, but Toel didn’t get to harm humans because he was out to overthrow me before I’d even claimed the throne.
Plus, the vamp just pissed me the hell off.
Foiling his plans, being one step ahead of him and making him look stupid was the best vengeance I could think of. “He doesn’t want me taking Nudra’s place for whatever reason, but killing me is a lot harder than killing those I’m connected to. He doesn’t necessarily want to piss off the Bridge Council, either, and killing me would definitely do that. Better to come at me from the side than head on.”
“The Institute doesn’t allow humans inside.”
Suits. Always up to their asses in rules. “Tell Damon he needs to make an exception.”
Cole stared at the screen on his phone. “Reception in here sucks.”
“I can ease up on the magic.”
“No.” He walked to the window and held up the phone. The bars on his screen must have multiplied, because he lowered the phone and hit a speed-dial button.
Rad leaned on my file cabinet looking confident and sexy as ever.
Damn him.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
It was his turn to receive an arched you-really-have-to-ask-that-question brow.
Didn’t faze him, of course. He continued to slouch against the cabinet, looking good enough to eat. “Besides get lost,” he amended.
I was at war with myself. He could help me send Lilith back to hell, but he was a Noctifector and could send me back with her. Working with the enemy was stupid, sloppy and downright mental.
He was also my blood slave. Toel might make a midnight snack of him before I got the chance to kill him. What to do, what to do…
“I think getting lost covers it.”
“Here,” Cole said, shoving his phone at me. “Boss wants to talk to you.”
This should be fun.
I took the phone, and before I could utter a word, Damon started in on me, his voice dark and clearly angry. “How in the name of Hades did a common witch raise Lilith from hell?”
The question of the hour. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that Lil wants me to do a job for her. Once that’s over, maybe she’ll go back to hell on her own.”
“If she doesn’t?”
“I’ll find another way to send her back.”
“What kind of job?”
“I’m on way to meet her and find out.”
A long pause. I could almost see Damon scrubbing his face with his free hand. “What happens if she kills you?”
“You’ll need to find a new vengeance demon to do your dirty work.”
The tone of his voice dropped a notch, but his anger was even more obvious. “This is not a joke, Kali. Lilith is loose on Earth and we have no way to stop her. One wrong move and the world is annihilated.”
Just a little pressure. Yeesh. “I know, Damon. The only chance we have is for me to find out what she wants and do the job. Get in, get out, send her on her way.”
“Where are you meeting her?”
“I think she’s at my house. While I go check that out, I want you to take my friends and blood slaves into the Institute for safe keeping.”
“Humans are not allowed inside the Institute.”
I’d known he was going to say that and I had a handy-dandy argument. “Toel Chase is threatening me and anyone associated with me. You want me to take Nudra’s place, you offer sanctuary to my friends and slaves, or I walk now.”
“Toel Chase?” His tone was incredulous.
“Hard to believe that idiot could have played us, but he did. So what’s it going to be? You keeping my friends at the Institute or am I walking away from our deal?”
“I don’t kowtow to blackmail.”
“But you can use it against me to get what you want?”
There was a long, heavy pause. “How long will it take you to get to your place?”
So Damon, changing the subject to avoid my spot-on accusation. “I’ll be there around nine. Nine-fifteen, if traffic is bad. As soon as I know what Lilith wants, I’ll let you know, but I want your promise you’ll take care of my friends and the blood slaves.”
“Meet me around back in the cemetery before you go into the church.”
“What?”
He hung up. Disconnected silence met my ear.
“Dammit.” I set the phone down before I threw against the wall.
“What’s up?” Rad asked.
I took a finely sharpened pencil out of my pencil holder and jammed the sharp end into my ink blotter. Cole took his phone as if he suspected I would use it as a substitute for Damon’s face. The first time I jabbed the sharpened point into the blotter, the graphite tip broke. The second time, the pencil shattered into three pieces, reminding me of the last White Sox game JR and I had attended. Konerko blasted a homerun out of the Cell, even though his bat broke in half. I loved that guy.
“Damon’s meeting us at my place,” I told Cole, brushing aside the splintered wood. It was time to focus and get the show on the road. Time to stop taking everything personally and let the training kick in. People, both human and supernatural, were depending on me.
Rising from my chair, I withdrew money from my cape and handed a twenty to Rad. I wasn’t meeting my creator on an empty stomach. While I would have preferred a hamburger and fries, it was a little early for the lunch menu. “I want a pumpkin spice latte, iced, not hot, and two chocolate chip scones.” I handed him two more bills. “And whatever everyone else wants, get it. It’s going to be a long day. We leave in ten minutes.”
Annoyed at being my errand boy, he nevertheless nodded. Cole asked for another coffee, black.
He smirked after Rad left the room. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”
I wrapped my cape around me, double checked my weapons. “You’re not on my good side.”
“How much you going to torture him before you forgive him?”
Keeping my head tipped down so Cole couldn’t see my lying brown eyes, I snugged the cape tighter. “I will never forgive him.”
“You gonna bust Damon’s balls too?”
I looked up, locking in my normal detachment. “If necessary.”
“Ouch.” He grimaced. “You are one tough bitch, Kali.”
Guess that said it all.
Chapter Nineteen
An eerie orange glow hung over my house and the surrounding area. Not from the sun, but from something far more sinister. Something unnatural. A glow like my mother had long ago described to me about the blazes of hell.
Contrary to the warm glow, a frigid cold breeze wormed its way under my cape as I entered the cemetery. Cole walked in front of me, Rad behind. There were times I might have enjoyed being the center of a man-sandwich, but in the foggy morning air, walking through this particular cemetery, this wasn’t one of them.
My breath puffed white in front of my face, mixing with the heavy fog, and my nerves were strung taught. Was Damon already here? I tried to sense him, read his mind like he had mine. I called to him mentally, but there was no reply. None of his smoky smell teased my nose as I tromped through overgrown vines and crunched grass and weeds, frozen with morning dew, under my boots.
Like I needed him looking over my shoulder and calling the shots. There had been times in the past when he’d given me an assignment and we’d disagreed over the execution of it, but he’d never over
ridden my judgment. Which was one of the reasons I continued to work for him. He accepted that my ways were sometimes unconventional but I got the job done and stayed alive in the process.
Supernaturals who worked for the Council lived at the Institute and worked only for the Council. I was the sole exception. When I’d signed on after arriving in America, Damon had offered an invitation to live at the Institute and I’d politely turned him down. He’d never insisted, which had surprised me, and he seemed to understand my need to live alone and work outside the Council’s perimeters. He stayed out of my personal business and gave me a lot of rope when it came to doing my job as his enforcer. I put Bridge jobs ahead of SI jobs and gave him one-hundred-and-ten-percent on every Bridge assignment.
The lines between personal and professional weren’t so clear this time. Victoria was my blood slave and one of the reasons I’d agree to become the vamp queen of Chicago. She’d raised Lilith without my consent and created the single greatest problem for both humans and supernaturals the Earth had known since the beginning of creation. She was my responsibility and I’d put all of us, including the Bridge Institute, in a precarious situation.
Inside the cemetery, we were closed off from the world. There was no bird song, not even the sound of cars on the streets nearby. The magical barriers I’d erected around the perimeter reached out, scuttling over my skin, my hair, my face, reminding me of a pet dog begging me to throw a stick for him to fetch.
Natural earth magic was strong inside here. Dark earth magic. Dark human souls as well. A massacre had occurred on this ground. Not just in the manner of a fight pitting good against evil, but a massive scale sacrifice had been made. A sacrifice I surmised had been to Death himself.
In the center of the graveyard was a portal to other worlds. Whoever had sacrificed so many souls here had opened that portal and there was no telling what had come up from it. Somewhere along the line, the portal had been sealed, but when I’d found it, the seal was weak. One of the reasons I’d bought the abandoned church and the grounds was to secure that portal and keep it from ever opening again.
Kali. Damon’s voice pierced my cranium from temple to temple. Come to the southeast corner.
“Ugh.” I grabbed my head with my hands. “Don’t do that.”
Cole spun on his heel, thinking I was being attacked. Rad grabbed my elbow. “What is it?” they asked in unison.
“Nothing. Damon’s over there.” I pointed to the right, and sure enough, through the fog hanging over the monuments and between the trees and vines, Damon came into view.
Rad kept his hand on me and tried to help me over a toppled grave marker. I jerked away, annoyed at his hovering and mad he refused to go away and leave me alone. Apparently he hadn’t heard chivalry was dead. This wasn’t the Middle Ages. This was modern-day America. Besides, if I could handle evil supernaturals on a daily basis, I could damn sure step over a piece of marble without help.
Petty, I know, but I was in no mood for niceties as we walked toward Damon. If I was being honest with myself, Rad’s presence rattled me more than Lilith’s. He was up to something. I just didn’t know what.
Damon narrowed his eyes slightly when the three of us stopped in front of him. He still had on his suit under a long black trench coat. I wondered what weapons he had stored inside the coat’s folds. Maybe none. He was an Archdemon after all.
He openly appraised Rad. “What’s he doing here?”
Rad held out a hand and gave Damon his goofy grin. “Radison Beaumont. Here to help.”
“Ignore him,” I said. “Maybe he’ll go away.”
Damon took my advice, making no move to shake Rad’s hand. He gave Cole a nod and spoke to me. “She’s in the church. I can sense her. What’s your plan?”
The plan was deceivingly simple. “Go in. Find out what the job’s about and pray it’s something I can do quickly and efficiently.”
“You think she wants revenge on someone.”
“That’s my specialty.”
“There’s no reason she can’t do it herself, now that she’s topside.”
All this talk wasn’t helping my nerves. “We can stand out here all day and speculate, but the only way we’ll know for sure is if I go in and talk to her.”
“I don’t like it.” Damon’s hands were sunk deep in his coat pockets. I suspected he was keeping them there in order not to grab me and haul me back to the Institute.
“None of us like it.” Me, especially. “We don’t have a choice. If I ignore her or run from her, she’ll send me to hell and probably wipe out Chicago in the process.”
Silence ensued, everyone lost in thought.
“What about Victoria?” I asked. “Did you let her and Hone into the Institute?”
“Hone is babysitting the witch at her house. She’ll be safe there for now.”
Cole had his back to us, keeping an eye out for danger of any and all kinds. Rad stepped closer to me, shoulder to shoulder, facing Damon. His scent overrode Damon’s and the graveyard’s. “I’m going in with Kali.”
I stepped sideways, putting space between us again. “You certainly are not.”
Rad spoke to Damon, ignoring me. “I know things about Lilith. I can help Kali and back her up at the same time.”
Damon studied him as I huffed and swore under my breath. “What kind of things?”
“I’ve studied the queen of demons in depth,” he said. “We don’t have time for me to relay all that to Kali, but I can go in with her and help her sidestep potential landmines.”
As a Noctifector, Rad had to know more about demons than demons did. He probably knew how many times Lilith pissed in a given twenty-four hour period.
But I didn’t care if Rad could pull monkeys out of his ass and polka at the same time, I still wasn’t facing Lilith with him by my side.
He’s in love with you, Damon said.
“Gah.” I grabbed my head, even though, surprisingly, this time the pain was minimal. His words, though, angered me. “Stop talking to me inside my head!”
Cole whipped around, surprise evident on his face as he pinned our boss with a curious stare. “You have access to her mind?”
The warrior knew what it took for Damon to plant his psukhe seed in me, and he wasn’t too happy about it. Rad knew, too, and was equally annoyed. Demon testosterone flooded the air.
Great. Just fucking great. That’s what I needed right now, a pissing contest between these three over my honor. “For Satan’s sake, all of you stop it.”
Damon seemed amused and superior about the whole thing. Is Cole in love with you, too?
“No,” I yelled. I stomped a few feet away, needing to put distance between us. “Enough talk. I’m going in.”
Rad started toward me and I yanked a stake from my cape and held it at throat level. “Unless you want your singing career to end right here, right now, you stay put.”
Rad stopped in his tracks, raising his hands as if I were robbing him.
Told you. Stakes work on everything.
Damon moved toward me, amusement still dancing around the corners of his mouth. He laid a hand on mine, pressuring me to lower the stake. “Take the Chaos demon with you. He could be of use. If he does anything you don’t like, you have my permission to end his singing career, pathetic as it is.”
“Hey,” Rad said.
Cole snickered.
Before I could argue, Damon added, “I’ll monitor your thoughts while you’re inside. If Lilith threatens you in any way, send an SOS and Cole and I will come in, magic blazing.”
That he would even think of taking on Lilith in my defense brought me up short. “You’ll die. Both of you.”
“Faith, Kali. I didn’t get where I am as an Archdemon and head of the Bridge Institute without knowing how to deal with impossible situations.”
I’d dealt with impossible situations all my life as well. Score one for the team, rah-rah, and all that, but having him and Cole and Rad there didn’t necessarily relieve
my stress or doubts.
Once again, I reminded myself to shut down the emotions. I had a job to do, plain and simple. Only this job wasn’t just about the vengeance being sought. If this job went south, a lot of humans and demons, including me, could die. “Have faith, Damon. I won’t need you.”
Chapter Twenty
Lilith was righteously scary. Before Rad and I walked through the main entrance of the church, I laid my hand against the stone like always to unlock the door and check for intruders. I already knew there was an intruder, but I hoped to get a sense of where she was and what she was doing. The heat radiating from the stone scorched my skin, blistering it instantly.
“Ouch!” I drew my hand back and shook it.
Rad reached for the injured hand. I jerked away, hiding it under my cape. “Not now,” I said under my breath and cursed myself for not leaving him behind regardless of Damon’s orders.
As I started to open the French doors, a hellhound materialized out of the air in front of me, teeth bared. Head level with my chest and his eyes devoid of intelligence or emotion, he was a killing machine. Like Mary’s little lamb, he followed Lilith wherever she went.
Why I hadn’t thought of that fact made me want to smack my forehead. Even in hell, Lilith traveled with a pack of hellhounds at her command.
The dog raised his nose and sniffed at my neck. Under my cape, I fingered the handle of my whip.
A sudden tornado of leaves swirled around the entrance and Rad said something in an old language I didn’t recognized. With slow reluctance, the hellhound shifted away from the door and once more became invisible. The swirling leaves stopped in midair and fell to the ground.
Okay. Maybe having Rad with me wasn’t the worst thing.
I let out the breath I’d been holding and heard Rad do the same. So even though he knew how to make them heel, the Noctifector wasn’t any more used to facing hellhounds than I was. The knowledge pleased me for some odd reason.