by E. A. Copen
He was right. It made me feel like a monster, but I knew he was right. Hell would be coming for me. My father’s warlords would want to eliminate me to strengthen their claims. This God’s Hand group was also going to be a thorn in our sides going forward. Hunted by Hell, in hiding from Heaven, we were going to need all the allies we could get.
I sighed and lowered my chin to my chest. “Okay, but we can’t stay here. They know about this place, and now the front door is busted, and there’s a body here. Eventually, someone’s going to find it.”
Josiah gave me one of his troublesome grins. “I know just the place.”
Chapter Four
JOSIAH
We should’ve skipped town. If it’d been anyone other than Danny, I would have in a heartbeat. I’d tangled with God’s Hand before, and the only way to give them the slip was to spend eight weeks in Siberia. Not something I would choose to do again.
So, instead, Khaleda packed up what little she’d acquired since coming to Earth—mostly oversized and unflattering clothing—and her pet and we left. With the news that we were likely being watched, I didn’t trust public transit, but none of us had cars of our own. Victis had come in a company vehicle that was being tracked, so we left it.
I wove a cloaking spell over us. They weren’t my specialty, and it wouldn’t hold if Khaleda was more than a foot from me, but it would discourage anyone from looking too closely. Couldn’t do anything about the cameras. That was Victis’ department.
Cleaned up and out of the body armor, he still wasn’t a looker. More the grizzled soldier type, all scars, body hair, and hard muscle. But he had sharp eyes, and a direct manner of speaking, which I appreciated. He directed us away from the cameras, taking us out the back of the building where an awning covered us as long as we slinked along the fence. With a little luck, a lot of planning, and switching cars three times, we made it to Chinatown and the Old Gong Hotel.
The Old Gong occupied the top three stories of a five-story building, with a Chinese grocery taking up the bottom floor. The floor between the hotel and grocery might’ve been apartments or storage. It was hard to tell which since my Mandarin was shaky at best. Khaleda spoke it well enough to get us checked in with the agitated man at the desk, who we’d clearly woken. It was closing in on dawn, and he kept trying to insist he didn’t run “that kind of place.” He didn’t want to take cash. In the end, he took the three Benjamins I had left and called it a deposit. Expensive for a crummy, one-star room in Chinatown, but at least we were paid up for two nights.
We reached the room and Khaleda flipped on the lights with a frown, eyeing the single bed. “It’s even smaller than the last place.”
“It’s New York,” I said, shouldering past her. “You want more than fifty square feet, you pay through the nose. Be thankful we got a room with a private bath.”
She was right, though. Linoleum flooring made the place look more like a hospital room than a hotel. The singular window was maybe a foot wide but made up for it by stretching floor to ceiling. If I slid by the foot of the bed carefully, I could avoid brushing against the television, but three people couldn’t stand in the open space without being in each other’s way.
I tossed my bag on the bed and gestured for them to come in. “You stand out in the hall, the other guests won’t be able to get by you.”
Khaleda glared at me. “It’s four in the morning. Normal people aren’t moving through the halls.” She griped, but she came in.
Victis followed her, looking grim, and closed the door behind him, keeping his back to it and staring longingly at the bed.
Khaleda sank to the bed, spreading her fingers over the thin comforter and crossing her legs. “I want you to go back to your command center, Victis. Tell them where to find your friend’s body so they can give him a proper burial.”
“Yes, Teacher.” He hesitated, glancing at me. “What should I tell them about the Nephilim?”
“You can tell them this.” I offered him a middle finger without looking away from my bag. “What’s the Latin for that?”
Khaleda shoved my hand away from her. “Tell them he overpowered you with a knockout spell and escaped. If they want to know why he left you alive, tell them he was too busy running away to check and you played dead. You saw him get into a cab, but you didn’t catch the number. You changed your clothes so you could leave without seeming suspicious. Did you get all that?”
He nodded. “Yes, Teacher.”
“Good.”
Smart girl, hiding the lie inside the truth.
The man beamed like a dog who’d caught a fox.
“When your shift is over, you’re not to come back here,” Khaleda said.
Victis’ smile faded, his face shifting to panic. “But… Where should I go?” Before she could speak, he dove to his knees in front of her, folding his hands as if in prayer. “Don’t send me away from you, please. I love you.”
“Victis…”
“Please, Teacher. I’ll do whatever you ask. If I’ve offended you, tell me what I can do to fix it. I’ll do it, whatever it is.”
Khaleda closed her eyes as if she were in pain. Poor girl. Maybe I should’ve let her kill him. She reached to brush her fingers against his cheek, and he leaned into her hand as if it were the only thing keeping him from falling. “I want you to go back to your old life until I call you, Victis. Pretend to be your old self and do whatever you have to. I promise I’ll call you soon.”
He gripped her fingers and turned his head to kiss her knuckles, shaking. “Yes, Teacher. Don’t forget me.”
“I won’t.”
He stood and crept with careful backpedaling to the door, exiting through it without ever giving Khaleda his back.
She stared at the closed door. “He’ll be dead by tomorrow.”
“Bastard might surprise you. He looks tough.” I opened my bag and dug through the contents to find some chalk. “Anyone ever break free of that bewitching thing you do?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
I considered it. “You slept with Lazarus, and he wasn’t a mindless idiot. Well, let me revise that statement. He wasn’t brainless mush like Victis.”
In fact, Lazarus Kerrigan was a scary man. He was a Horseman, one of the foursome said to be the heralds of the end times. Having met the man, I believed it. He wasn’t someone I wanted to cross. Lucky for humanity, he had no idea how much power he truly had and chose to waste it on senseless things like truth, justice, and video games. He was all right.
Khaleda’s eyes followed me as I walked around the bed and knelt on the floor to begin drawing my circle. “Lazarus is the Pale Horseman, and we were using sex to quick charge an item for a spell, so the item in question took most of the energy.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Only if you’re a masochist.”
“Is he?” I reached where she sat on the bed and looked up at her.
She’d either have to move so I could finish the circle or I’d have to stop drawing. If she stayed, I’d just sit there with her legs in front of me and work hard at remembering the way she stood over the first soldier with her knife in his neck. Naked, covered in blood, the raging storm of a hundred battles in her eyes, those lovely muscles flexing beneath tight, wet skin…
Khaleda raised an eyebrow and stayed right where she was. “Is he what?”
“A bloody masochist, woman. Try to keep up.”
She wrinkled her nose, looking like she’d just eaten a whole spoonful of vegemite in one go. “I’m not going to discuss anybody’s kinks with you, pervert.”
“I figure he must be. He did willingly climb into bed with an ice queen. Wonder it didn’t freeze off. Did it?”
Her disgusted expression deepened, and she stood with a huff to storm to the tiny window.
Victory for me.
As I finished the circle, drawing the chalk over the wall to complete the other side, I stole a glance at her backside. While it was a nice view, it wasn’t near
as nice in the sweats as it might be in a dress. A nice short one and a pair of heels. She could put her hair up and—
A wave of cold hit me, rushing down my spine. “You cut your hair.”
Khaleda instinctually reached up to run her fingers through the shorter do as if I’d just paid her a compliment. “So?”
“Where is it?”
“What do you—” She paused halfway through turning around, eyes growing wide. “Shit, it’s in the fucking sink!”
Stupid girl. She should’ve been more careful! Not only would the fresh trim give away that someone else had been in the apartment with me when the Hand went to search the place, but it’d be an easy way for them to track her down.
There was nothing to be done about it now except try to block the spell. That meant either shaving her bald or drastically altering the composition of her hair.
“I need peroxide and foil.” She stormed over to where I was working, standing on the bed and held out her hand expectantly.
With a sigh, I handed over my last thirty dollars in cash. It was worth it to have the place to myself for a few minutes. She left in a determined flurry, not even realizing the significance of the moment. It was the first time she’d gone out to do anything on her own since coming back from Hell. Maybe there was hope for her yet.
After she left, I finished my circle and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling with my hands on my chest. Sleep seemed impossible. If I’d had the room to myself, I might’ve indulged in a quick wank just to relieve some of the pressure that was building from dealing with that woman.
At first, I’d chalked it all up to her trip to Hell. Maybe it was the missing bits of soul too. But I had the distinct feeling that even once she was whole, she’d still be an entitled bitch. I wasn’t even under her spell and I’d just forked over the last of my money. What for? For her vanity. We should’ve just cut it all off. It’d grow back.
It wasn’t going to get me anything. She hated my guts. Even when she was desperate, even when she needed to feed, she’d never given me more than an insult. Not that I cared. I wasn’t in it for that. I could get what I needed on any street corner for less than what I’d handed her and still have cash left to smoke. The sex—or lack of—wasn’t the problem.
What was it then that was making my skin crawl with an unscratchable itch? Why was it I’d flown all the way here with her, set her up with whatever she wanted? Why did I give a shit when she cried behind closed doors?
The only reason I wanted to fuck her was because that’s what I’d do with any other woman. But Khaleda wasn’t any other woman. She was the one I couldn’t have. I couldn’t decide if that was why I wanted her so badly or not. I wasn’t a kid who should’ve been drawn to something just because it was forbidden and dangerous.
And she was no Danny Monahan.
I sat up with a sigh. “Fuck me, I’d better get this done before she comes back.”
The leather bag I carried around with me was no ordinary bag. It contained near limitless space thanks to a spell that had been woven into the leather by the manufacturer. The cow the leather had come from had been raised on a steady diet of grass from consecrated ground in Nepal and chanted over daily. When it was slaughtered and skinned, it was done in a special ritual. Another ritual for tanning the hide in the urine of a holy man, another for the thread… Everything about the bag was drenched in magic, which had made it take strong spells with ease.
It was Danny who made the bag into a bottomless object with extra-dimensional space. He gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday. The memory of that always brought a smile, no matter how many years passed. It’d been the one happy moment before life went to shit. Oh, to go back and be young again…
But even with all my power, I couldn’t change the past. Not for me, not for Khaleda, and not for Danny.
I opened the bag again and drew out the small plastic container I’d been hiding from Khaleda ever since we’d met. “Hello, lovely. If you promise not to get into trouble, I’ll let you out for a walkabout.”
With care, I popped the lid on the container and extended my senses into it, flooding the rectangular plastic space with familiar magic before reaching in. Milly might’ve been a lovely girl, docile as they come, but two weeks in that cramped space with only limited outings would be enough to test anyone’s patience. Luckily, she had the run of the place as long as she stayed in the bag, making her tiny plastic container four, maybe five times as large on the inside. More than enough for a tarantula her size.
Delicate little legs tapped at my fingers. Tiny hairs tickled my palm as she crawled up and met my magic with her own. Being reunited with Milly was a welcome relief, as she was the only creature I could stand to touch when things got overwhelming. She was gentle but strong, less aggressive than a cat, and surprisingly more tolerable than a dog.
I let her perch on my shoulder while I moved my arms about over the circle, flexing both magically and physically. Extend, retract. Touch and go. Feel the energy of the room, release. Take, return. It was a basic centering exercise, much like breathing in yoga, or a morning jog for a marathon runner. No effort at all for me, but a prerequisite to keep sharp. In magic, basics were everything. If you didn’t have a good handle on that, might as well not try. Some idiots were born with natural talent or stumbled into it by accident. Me? Left to my own devices, I’d never have done anything other than parlor tricks to get laid.
Another push of magic directed at the circle and I held it there, feeling the power spread over the faint lines I had drawn and spread into a full dome. Encased in the familiar warm glow of my own power, I relaxed. This was what I knew.
I closed my eyes and threw out a hand, letting the power kiss my fingers like a lover a moment before I bent it to my will with a verbal command, just the way Danny had taught me. The spell drove into the space I’d created, probing, searching for an escape. I held the circle and gave it none, forcing it back to the center. Even there, it tried to wriggle out of my grasp and disobey. I lashed it back into submission, my voice raw from the effort.
Sweat formed on my chest and on the back of my neck. Familiar euphoria hovered on the edge of my consciousness. I could complete the summoning now. There was plenty of power there, and I’d done all the work, but I wasn’t ready to let it go. I had more to burn off, and this spell was too small, too tight for what I needed. What I needed was big magic, raw, violent and angry, the kind that would shred my skin and make me bleed if I made a mistake.
Milly shifted on my shoulder, subtly reminding me that such a spell wasn’t required. Her way of saying, Save it for the real fight, fuckwit.
I held the magic in a ball just a moment longer, until the strain of it made my skin burn and muscles quake. When I let it go, the summoning exploded in three short bursts of power, each one stronger than the last, a hammer on Hell’s door.
Flame sparked in the center of the circle, hovering just above the bed and coalescing into a form vaguely like that of a German Shepherd. The demon dog’s eyes flashed red, and he tilted his head to the side quizzically. “Having a bit of fun, Josiah?”
“Just blowing off some steam.” That’s right. Ignore the shaky hands and heavy breathing. A ciggy and I’d be back to normal like nothing’d happened at all. I lit one before continuing. “How’s it been, Valefor? How’re the kids?”
The demon showed me his fangs. “Dead. You and the Pale Horseman made short work of them on your last trip through.”
Shit. Better apologize. “Sorry about that, mate. Just business. Hard to tell one hellhound from another when they’re all trying to eat you.”
“I’ll make more. Now, what do you want?”
How to approach this? Valefor wasn’t loyal by any means. No demon could be. As soon as we were done speaking, he’d run to whatever master he was serving in Hell and report that we’d spoken. That much was a given every time we talked. Still, I knew Valefor well enough to trust him not to shack up with anyone too awful. While the bastard didn
’t have any morals, he did have agendas, being King of the Hellhounds and the faithful companion of the next King or Queen of Hell among them.
And since I’d woven a binding spell into the summoning, he couldn’t run off until I released him to do so, which meant I had him for as long as I wanted.
I plucked the cigarette from my lips and offered it to him. “You’ll never guess who I ran into while I was in Hell last.”
Human-like fingers reached out to grab the smoke and huff on it. “Don’t fuck with me, Josiah. I know you and the Pale Horseman walked out with Khaleda Morningstar. Everybody knows. Half of Hell is still mourning Lucifer’s passing. The other half has already sworn allegiances to people who want to kill you. Or kill her. Some want both.”
“No kidding? Well, that’s a problem, see, as I’d like to go on living.”
Valefor puffed on the cigarette and blew out perfect rings of smoke. “Then you shouldn’t have helped kill Lucifer Morningstar.”
That was Valefor for you. Honest to a fault. I knew I’d signed my death warrant with that job, but maybe I could get out of it if I played my cards right.
Milly’s legs tapped on the pulse in my neck. Quit stalling and ask.
I cleared my throat. “Thing is, Khaleda seems to be missing part of her soul. You know anything about that?”
Valefor’s ears perked. I’d surprised him. “Morningstar didn’t authorize that.”
“Figured as much. The two demons I found with her are dead. If they’d had a piece, the Horseman I was with would’ve noticed. I thought someone else might have it. You know who oversaw her punishment?”
The demon grunted and made a bird out of smoke in the air. “Well, whoever it was, they’re idiots. Something like that would be too hot to move down here. Khaleda’s in the running to take over. Anyone caught holding onto something that belonged to her can count the days left in his lifespan on one hand.”