Grand Master (Demons, #3)

by Simcoe, Marina

  “Leave,” I ordered.

  “Please.”

  “You need to leave.” I raised the knife higher, my heart thundering with fear. “Now.”

  Vadim gave me one last glance then inclined his head, as if conceding, and turned to the exit.

  Holding the knife in my outstretched hand, I followed him to the hallway, to make sure he left.

  He stopped suddenly at the front door.

  “It’s been centuries since I’ve spoken to a human—a woman— before you, Jade. I may fail to accurately express myself. But I’ve seen what a woman can feel for a demon like me. And hope is a stubborn emotion.” A corner of his mouth lifted in a bitter smile as he took a card from his pocket and placed it on the hallway stand. “Now, I will spend the rest of eternity waiting for your call.”

  The longing in his voice and his expression made my heart squeeze with compassion, but I only tightened the grip on my knife.

  “Go,” I croaked, my own voice breaking.

  Shoulders slumped, he nodded mechanically, as if lost in thought, then took a step to my apartment door and then . . . kept on walking, right through the door, without opening it.

  With a strangled noise, I watched him disappear through the hard surface, as if it had absorbed him. Nearly dropping the knife from my shaking fingers, I leaped to the door and splayed my free hand on it.

  Solid, firm, and unyielding under my palm, the wood didn’t seem to change in any way and had no signs of a man having just passed through it.

  A man?

  I shrank away from the door in shock, understanding dawned on me.

  ‘I’m not human.’

  ‘A demon like me.’

  And a self-confessed murderer.

  I picked up the card he left. A plain light-grey rectangle with a phone number typed on it—all twelve digits of a local cell phone number, including the country code, but no name.

  ‘I’ll spend the rest of the eternity waiting for your call.’

  His words echoed in my mind, scrambling any coherent thought I could muster.

  Chapter 17

  I TRIED TO GO ON ABOUT my life as usual for a few days. However, going through the motions of my day-to-day routine, my thoughts never strayed far from Vadim, making the usual impossible.

  Nothing was the same anymore.

  Every time I looked at my door, the image of his back disappearing through it rose in my mind, making me question my own sanity. I was certain he did not open that door when he left. What he did was impossible for a man.

  However, Vadim didn’t claim to be a man.

  ‘A demon like me.’

  I also recalled him referring to people as ‘humans’ on several occasions, as if talking about a separate species.

  ‘I will spend the rest of eternity waiting . . .”

  Grave and wistful, he sounded as if he knew exactly what an eternity of solitude felt like.

  Did he?

  Unless I was out of my mind myself, there could only be two explanations to all of this.

  Either Vadim was delusional or he really was not a human.

  Was he unwell? Was that why he seemed to spend most of his time in that house, isolated from the society?

  I thought back to the building in the woods. His behaviour there was far from that of a mentally disturbed patient. On the contrary, he emitted an air of undisputed authority that had others obeying him wordlessly.

  A demon?

  Could something like that even be possible?

  A demon . . . who had killed.

  His words rang through my mind over and over. ‘When all I wanted to do was to make love to her.’

  Was it an accident, then? Or was I searching for reasons to excuse a murder, somehow trying to justify it?

  It might be easier for me to forget him if I could dismiss my attraction to him as purely physical. However, thinking back to our dinner together, I couldn’t ignore the connection I felt to him. Whoever or whatever Vadim was, that evening he seemed to be the closest being on the planet to me—someone who understood me without words.

  It scared me and made me miss him, all at once.

  After tormenting myself with questions for days, I realised I couldn’t leave the country without at least getting some answers.

  One evening a few days later, I found myself rummaging through my hallway stand for his card.

  I took out the plain rectangle of paper. Staring at the phone number again, I slid to the floor, my back to the wall. I knew the last thing I should do was call him, but there was someone else who might be able to answer my questions about Vadim.

  Crumpling the card in my hand, I dialled another number.

  “Hello,” Andras’s pleasant drawl greeted me.

  “Hi, it’s Jade.” I’d never told him my name, but if they’d done the background check on me, it was reasonable to expect Andras would know who I was.

  “Hello, Jade.” His voice remained calm and even, as always.

  “Would you be able to answer a few questions for me, please? It’s about Vadim.”

  “Curiosity is a sin not a virtue, Jade.” His tone had turned guarded now. “It can be dangerous.”

  “I need to know how he is doing, Andras.”

  “He is fine,” he replied flatly. “Would you like me to let him know you called?”

  “No. Please, don’t.”

  “Well then—”

  “Wait!” The fear that he would hang up urged me to rush in getting my words out. “Please. Just a couple of questions.”

  “Why?”

  “I . . .” I closed my eyes, gathering my thoughts. “I need to know, Andras. He said some things to me, odd and disturbing things. He walked through the freaking door . . .”

  “He did?” The note of disbelief in his tone made me wonder if Andras hadn’t known what Vadim was. “It’s not like him to be that careless,” Andras muttered. “What made him forget himself like that? How did it happen?”

  It seemed Andras didn’t question Vadim’s ability, just him displaying it to me.

  “Well, we were at my apartment. He confessed he’d murdered someone, a woman. And I told him to leave. He did. Without opening the fucking door, Andras. I need some answers here. It’s driving me insane.”

  I heard him take a deep breath.

  “Would you like to talk to him?”

  “No. I called you.” The way my heart jumped at the thought of talking to Vadim only proved that any contact with him was not a good idea at this point—I needed to listen to my brain right now, not my heart. “Just a couple of questions, please. And I promise I’ll never bother you again.”

  A long pause stretched through the line between us once again. My hand began to cramp from the tight grip I had on my mobile phone.

  “For me to answer any questions at all, we’ll have to talk in person, Jade,” Andras finally replied. “I’ll need to see your emotions.”

  “My emotions? Facial expressions, you mean.”

  “I said what I mean. When and where do you want to meet? Unless you would like me to send a car for you.”

  “No.” I did not want to go to that building again. “Let’s meet here in the city.” I dug in my brain for a suitable public location not too far from my office. “Prospect Nezavisimosti,” I named the main street in Minsk. “I’ll wait for you outside the Metro station, Victory Square, at noon tomorrow.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  The line went dead.

  HANDS IN THE POCKETS of my leather coat, I paced the pavement just outside Victory Square, scanning the pedestrians in search of Andras.

  The day had turned out to be rather pleasant for November. The sun shone bright in the cloudless sky, and there was just a slight breeze in the fresh, autumn air.

  I spotted his tall figure almost a block away.

  Out of his grey robe and dressed in a leather jacket and jeans, Andras wouldn’t be easy to recognize, if not for his above average height and build.

  “H
ello, Jade.” He approached me, his face partially obscured by the shadows from the hood of the grey sweatshirt he wore under the jacket. “I hope I’m not late.”

  I shook his gloved hand.

  “No, you’re not. I came too early.”

  In fact, I’d had a hard time concentrating at work today, leaving the office a half-hour before my lunch break.

  “Have you eaten yet?” he inquired politely. “There is a café on the corner—”

  “No, I haven’t, but I’m not hungry. Are you?”

  “No,” he replied simply, a corner of his mouth curling up slightly. “Not at all.”

  “Good.” I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sit still in a café anyway. The anxiety eating me from the inside urged me to move. “Would you mind if we just went for a walk? To the next Metro station maybe?”

  “As you wish,” he replied in the same tone he used to discuss my desires during my visits to the building in the woods.

  “How long have you known Vadim?” I asked as we strolled within the pedestrian flow along Prospect Nezavisimosti.

  “All his life.”

  I shot a glance his way.

  “I should say ‘all my life’, too.” He shrugged a broad shoulder, his hands in his jacket pockets.

  “You’re the same age?”

  Andras nodded.

  “You grew up together then?”

  “I did not say that.”

  “Wouldn’t knowing someone all your life imply that you had some contact in childhood?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  I caught him watching me—dark eyes glistening from the shadows of his hood.

  “That would be true only if both of us had a childhood,” he explained.

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Humans, yes. But not us.”

  I stopped in my tracks, holding his gaze.

  “Are you going to tell me you’re a demon, too?”

  Or was that building in the woods an institution for the insane, after all?

  “Would you believe me if I said yes, I am?”

  The earnest note in his voice made me pause.

  I searched his face for any indications he might be joking, finding none. “I don’t really know what to believe at this point.” I shook my head, muttering under my breath, “Although the fact that I’m even considering the existence of demons may mean I belong in an institution myself.”

  To my surprise, a wide smile spread on Andras’s face, open and sincere.

  “Natasha said something along those lines, too, when I told her what I was.”

  “Who is Natasha?” I began walking again, and he followed, catching up to my pace.

  “She is my Mistress. My woman. My girlfriend, you would say. When I first told her, she tried to talk me into seeing a psychologist at the hospital where she works.”

  My head felt like it was about to explode, and I rubbed my forehead.

  “Did she believe you at the end? Does she really think she is dating a demon?”

  “Yes.” His smile grew wider.

  “What convinced her?”

  “I’d love to say something profound like ‘her faith in me’ or ‘her love for me,’ but it was my showing her a few things that would be impossible for humans to do.”

  The image of Vadim’s body disappearing through the door rose in my head again.

  “Did you walk through a locked door, too?” I asked.

  “A wall. Between our apartments. I’ve bought a place in her building, just to be closer to her. I also broke a cast-iron frying pan in half with my bare hands to show her our strength. These two abilities would probably be the most obvious differences between you and us, visually. However, Jade, the similarities are far greater.”

  My thoughts went back to my last conversation with Vadim.

  “Did you know that Vadim killed someone?” I asked, my throat tightening.

  It felt like the world had stilled around us at that moment.

  “We all have.” Andras’s voice went grave and low, any smile gone from it completely.

  “What do you mean?” I stepped in front of him, forcing him to face me, despite the cold trickle of fear down my spine. Being in the middle of a crowded street made me feel much braver.

  “Jade, it’s been nearly a millennium since we came to Earth.” He gazed at me calmly. “The world was very different back then. Most humans killed or were killed in never-ending wars and battles that they constantly led against each other.”

  “Is that an everyone-is-doing-it-so-it’s-acceptable excuse?” I squinted at him.

  “Not an excuse but a way of life for most of human history. Had any one of you lived as long as we have, you all would have had blood on your hands, too.” The conviction in his voice was unshakable and his gaze on me was sombre and cold. “It’s not about whether we killed or not at this point. Our past is long and dark, and we can’t change it. It’s about what we’ve learned over the centuries. Just like humans have evolved, we’ve evolved too. Our process has been slower, stilted by inside and outside forces, but we have changed as well.”

  “How on earth am I supposed to believe and accept all of this?” I exhaled, speaking mostly to myself here, trying to wrap my mind around the existence of demons in our world.

  “I think you’re already there.” Andras lifted an eyebrow. “Or at least well on the way.”

  Breaking eye contact, I glanced around us, the people rushing past were completely unaware of the centuries-old secrets I was learning.

  “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  “I see you care about Vadim, Jade. And I want you to know the truth. A woman once told me that lies are not a good start for any relationship.”

  “I—I’m not looking for a relationship with Vadim . . .”

  He gave me another one of his deep, penetrating stares, as if verifying something inside me.

  “If that’s what you choose to believe.” He inclined his head, obviously avoiding an argument. “You had questions,” he reminded. “I can help you answer some of them.”

  “Right.” I paused, gathering my thoughts once again. There were so many questions. One topic, however, was still at the front of my mind. “Did all the murders happen a millennium ago?”

  “It’s different for each of us.”

  A crime was a crime, regardless of when it happened. I never believed that time alone would give a murderer absolution.

  However, I could see Andras’s point, too.

  We distance ourselves from the past crimes of humanity because ‘those were different times and other people.’ But what if we lived through those times ourselves? What if I committed something as horrible as murder long ago? Would I be able to forgive myself centuries later? Would I deserve forgiveness?

  “What have you done, Andras?”

  He rolled his shoulders back with a slight frown. Whether or not he had forgiven himself, the memories obviously still bothered him, and I couldn't see an escape from that.

  “My last victim was a vampire hunter in the middle of the nineteenth century,” he began. “He was a part of a group who cornered me, spraying me with holy water and chanting prayers. Someone shot me with a silver bullet as he drove a wooden spike into my chest, crushing my ribs. I shoved him aside, inadvertently snapping his neck.”

  “What happened to the rest of them?” What he described could have been a scene in a movie, except that for Andras, it was real. He lived through it and had to deal with the consequences ever since.

  “The rest chased me through the city, shooting at my back, until I hid from sight under a dock in the port. Murder is not our first instinct, Jade, but it has happened.”

  “Vadim told me it was a woman.” I said slowly. “Do you know anything about her?”

  “No. We all have our dark memories, which we don’t particularly like bringing into the light. Even if I knew, I would advise you to talk to Vadim himself to get the answers you seek.”

  “I don’t believ
e I should see him again.” I inhaled the late-autumn air, wishing it would clear the mess in my chest and straighten the chaos of thoughts in my head.

  He gave me a penetrating stare. “Are you afraid of him?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?” I snapped my gaze to his hidden in the shadows of his hood. “I mean if you were in my position?”

  “Jade, you have been coming to our Base, a place where the danger is still very real. Vadim kept you safe every time. Harming you is definitely not what he wants to do.”

  “Apparently, his good intentions didn’t help the woman he killed,” I insisted.

  “Just talk to him,” Andras suggested, his voice pacifying. “I can see how you feel about him—”

  “Is it that obvious?” I frowned, even as something tugged at my heart again at the thought of Vadim.

  “Not for everyone. But we see human emotions plainly. I can tell you are not indifferent to him. You are also confused and worried. Would an honest conversation ease your mind?”

  I bit my lip, unable to deny what he had said about my feelings but still unsure about what he’d suggested.

  “I went through something similar before opening up to Natasha,” he continued. “I told her about myself following the advice I got from a human woman. Alyssa was the first one I met personally who fell in love with one of us, giving hope to all of us.”

  Hope, the stubborn emotion Vadim had called it before he left that day.

  Could I leave the country without seeing Vadim again? If I ran, could I hide from wondering what could have been for the rest of my life?

  “Where is Alyssa now?”

  “In Canada. Lending her expertise to our brand-new project of repairing, well, building a bridge between humans and Incubi.”

  “Incubi?”

  “That’s what our kind are, Jade. I am an Incubus. Vadim is, too.”

  Chapter 18

  WALKING SLOWLY ALONG the main street in Minsk for the next hour, Andras explained to me what it meant to be an Incubus—a sex demon. Something I had thought was only a myth.

  As he talked, the pieces began to fall into place. The purpose of my nightly visits became clear, explaining some of Vadim’s behaviour, too. A picture of the Incubi world emerged, along with Vadim’s life in it.