Chapter 1
The sky was a light, fluffy shade of purple, and a lone vulture sailed through it lazily. The scavenger looked down on the scene below, a twisted wooded path leading nowhere, flanked by manic clowns, their pointed teeth dripping with blood and their mouths curled up into horrible sneers. Up ahead, an elephant perched near the path, a large bullet hole in its neck and its chest awash with deep, flowing crimson. It was about ten minutes from bleeding out. I’d make sure it died right next to Cahal, whose favorite animal was the Brink elephant.
All of this was for Cahal, the incredibly tough warrior druid who was duty-bound to his lethal skill set until he found his perfect mate, something that would release him from his curse and allow him to settle down with his mate and produce plump children, or whatever he planned to get up to. Maybe he didn’t want kids. Maybe he just wanted an elephant. It was hard to say with him.
The best assassin in the world, and he thought the duty was a curse. What a tragedy.
I’d offered to trade his lot in life for mine.
No dice.
I cracked my knuckles and patted my thigh, looking for one of my daggers, only to remember I didn’t have them. Dang it, that was right—no weapons allowed for this training. It was magic only.
Taking a deep breath, I fashioned another vulture and waved it to life above us, sending it toward Cahal. He was waiting along the path somewhere, underneath his least favorite color, surrounded by one of the only things that made his bowels watery, near his favorite animal in the stages of bleeding out.
Some might call me a real asshole for shoving the guy’s worst nightmares in his face. Those people would be right. It was great fun watching him squirm. Just as fun, probably, as kicking my ass was for him. At least, I assumed that was why he always did it with such gusto.
“Here we go.” Magic pumping through me, I started to run along the path, speeding up the gestures and jeering of the clowns. Maybe that would distract Cahal a little, and I could get a few more punches in before he threw me against a tree.
All of this had been fashioned with my magic, of course. The clowns weren’t real. I would never shoot an elephant—I liked those big sons of bitches. Purple sky? Weird. But my father could construct worlds, and I needed to learn how to do it too. I’d gotten pretty good at it, much to Cahal’s unwavering delight.
He didn’t love my sarcasm, though.
A pasty-white swamp monster jumped out from behind a clown, its mouth open and saliva dripping from the wicked fangs in its black gums. It—or he, in this case—spread his clawed hands and prepared to get his ass handed to him.
I flung air like it was knives, opening slashes in the sides of his chest, my aim now a work of art. Which was good. I didn’t want to kill my boyfriend, after all. He was great in bed, so it was worth being cautious.
A block of air punched him in the kisser, and then I was on him, sweeping his legs out from under him before fashioning a sword made of air. I hacked down, but he rolled at the last moment, hopping up and stabbing his claws forward. I arched, barely missing a few puncture holes before I slapped him with air and sent him flying. He scraped the solid air with his claws, but my power was pulsing at a demonic mid-five level, edging closer to hitting level six, which was where my father sat, at the top of the hierarchy. It would take Darius a while to get through that air, and by then I’d be facing a god-touched druid, the likes of whom the world had never seen.
At least, I liked to think of him that way. It made me feel better when he bested me.
A clown jumped on a pogo stick to my right, somehow staying on while waving her arms in the air and squealing. What a freak show. I might be laying it on a little thick.
Around a reaching bush covered in lollipops—Cahal was trying to ditch the sugar, worried about his boyish figure—the path opened up, and there he stood, a blindfold over his eyes, holding a wicked black sword with a curved blade. Light gleamed off the point, the moonlight bright enough to paint that nightmare.
I sent a small whip of magic, snapping the blindfold off him. The cloth fell away as he turned slightly to face me. Another blindfold waited under the first, secured tightly to his head. He could always sense the direction of my magic. It was really annoying for sneak attacks.
“Really hate those clowns, huh?” I said, because it wasn’t his first encounter with them.
“You have an uncanny ability to unsettle your opponent and gain the advantage,” he said, bending his knees just a little in preparation for my attack. “I needed a way to protect my eyes from witnessing your horrors.”
“My horrors? You mean my face? I haven’t lost my eyebrows in weeks…”
He launched forward, not giving me an opportunity to peel off that second blindfold. He moved so fast that he basically blurred. He wrapped his magic around his body, shadows clinging to him, moving and changing and tricking my eyes. I pushed forward to meet him while calling up daggers of air. I was just preparing to throw them when they dissolved into nothing.
Swearing under my breath, I called up fire. Still nothing happened.
“When did Penny get here?” I ground out, because only Penny knew the spell for deadening my magic. “This just became an incredibly unfair fight.”
Cahal’s wicked sword cut through the air, and I bent backward to miss it. The blade caught a piece of my hair and sliced it right off. I was just glad it hadn’t gotten close enough to shave my whiskers. Also that I didn’t have any whiskers.
Turning the arch into a slide, I scraped the dirt and punched upward as I moved under him. My fist connected with his package hard enough to lift him into the air.
“Eeeiiii.”
The sound he made didn’t seem quite human.
I popped up on the other side of him and worked Penny’s spell, which hovered around the clearing like a fart. If I burned it from the outside in, I could usually get rid of the thing.
Cahal staggered, the very first time I’d ever seen him do so. Not wasting my advantage, still working Penny’s spell, I sprinted forward and considered a one-two punch to his melon. That would get him back in the game, though. He had an amazing ability to ignore injuries in order to keep busting heads. Right now he was wallowing in his bruised manhood. I wanted to make the most of his distraction.
So I ripped his blindfold off.
Clowns danced into the clearing, blood oozing down their chins and dripping onto the ground. The fluffy purple sky rained candy canes, bouncing around us on the gumdrop-studded ground. The wounded elephant laboriously limped down the path, pathetic in its dying, its gaze pleading.
Cahal’s eyes rounded and then darted around, horror slacking his jaw.
Bingo.
I’d gotten today’s world-building perfectly right. It had taken a couple of months for me to suss out all his hates, fears, and dislikes, but this payoff was worth it.
Penny’s spell dissolved away, and I commenced a full-scale attack, kicking Cahal while he was down. It was the only way to take on this freaking druid. It was intensely hard to make him say uncle.
Air-throwing stars ripped into his flesh. Fire burst to life under his feet and grew quickly, the heat sweltering. I was one of very few magical creatures who possessed the ability to use hellfire, but that would actually kill him. No go.
I created a spear with air, instead, and threw it at his stomach. He could heal like a vampire. Like me. He’d live if it skewered him.
His sword swished in an arc, though, cutting through my magic and actually deflecting the spear.
“I still don’t understand how you can do that,” I said, tossing more air-throwing stars and then two more spears, keeping him occupied while I tried to burn him at the imaginary stake.
He did a hot-footed dance, his sword whirling like a tornado, flinging away all my efforts. I smashed air down on top of him, but before I could flatten him to the ground, he punched upward. His fist connected with the solid air, and the sheer strength of his will stopped its downward trajectory.
“You are losing power because you’re using too many magical elements at once,” he said, his voice quavering with the effort. He gave a mighty heave and shoved the magic off, still dancing gracefully within my flames as he moved across the squishy gumdrops, the fire trailing him. “Reduce the various elements of your magic and focus on the kill strike.”
“Any hint on which I should reduce?”
“This horrible world you’ve created would be nice.”
Good hint.
I cut out the fire, not hot enough to do lasting damage (on purpose), and stopped the air assault. He paused for a moment, and a gleam lit his eyes. He nodded slightly. I’d read him correctly. He was too good for half-baked assaults. They would never beat him, something I hadn’t properly learned in the past. He’d always fight me until I ran out of steam, and then he’d pummel me.
Messing with his mind, though…
The elephant gave a mighty wail as it shrank down to a baby elephant, crying for him, stumbling his way. On the other side of the clearing, I created its mournful mother, the building of even this small world taxing but fun. I called it a win every time Cahal reacted, even slightly. If he flinched, it was the equivalent of a normal person screaming and curling up into a ball.
The fluffy purple sky shifted down, enveloping us, and chocolate welled up and flowed in little eddies and streams around us, carrying marshmallows on top.
He licked his plush lips, his eyes darting again. Then…he smirked. It was the first I’d ever seen him do it.
“You’re pretty hot when you grin. Has anyone ever told you that?” I built up my power, circling him slowly.
He stalked toward me, wariness in his eyes, his grin fading. Then his gaze darted to the wounded baby elephant. He had a few heartstrings hidden deep down inside of him, it seemed.
“Don’t like when someone mentions your appearance, huh?” I badgered. “Have you gotten a complex from women treating you like a side of beef all your life?”
His gaze bored into mine. “You are world class at sensing and exploiting weaknesses.”
“I’ve had to be. Working in a magical community while hiding my magic… It helped me develop a sort of”—I flung an air spear at him that erupted in fire at the last moment; he swung his sword in a graceful circle, deflecting it—“penchant for survival.” I grinned. “People don’t focus on you so much when they’re battling their own demons.”
“You should not actually throw the air with your hand. You don’t need to, and it alerts me to your plans.”
“Riiight… Put that on the list of items to practice.”
“Yes.” And then he burst into movement, zipping across the clearing like a phantom, shadows draping around him, making it hard to track his movements.
I threw up an air shield, and then made copies of the baby elephant. Yeah, I could do that. I stamped those suckers all around us as Cahal tried to bash through my shield with his expert sword moves.
“Help them,” I pleaded. “Don’t let them die.”
He crashed into my air shield as I readied another elephant calf behind him. His eyes darted, and he jerked away from the one nearly at his side. It made him bump into the apparition behind him, but his back pushed through the image. They weren’t solid, and I didn’t know how to infuse enough air into them to make it so. Not yet. It was a work in progress.
I backed it away.
“They’re dying,” I hollered, putting as much drama into it as I could. Blood gushed, the little babies faltering, and his body tightened.
And then I crashed a second wall forward, smashing him in between them.
He flattened against the wall in front of me. His sword sliced into his forearm, and his cheek smeared against the hard air. Red-tinged spit dribbled out of his smooshed lips and leaked around his chin.
“Say uncle,” I yelled, using all my power to keep him put, shaking with the effort as he tried to buck and create some room for himself to escape. “Say uncle!”
He tried to buck again, and I dumped all I had into my magic, no longer focusing on keeping the world intact around us. The fluffy sky started to dissolve like cotton candy in the rain. A leg fell off an elephant, and it hobbled before bending to breaking knees.
“Yield!” he mumbled through still-smooshed lips.
“I said say uncle, not yield. You have to say uncle or I won’t let you out.”
Another elephant crashed to the ground, and the illusion of blood spread across the ground. My faltering magic couldn’t hold the original design. This was so much more gruesome than what I’d created.
Cahal jolted, his eyes wide as he caught sight of it. He bucked wildly, the wall pushing back.
“No you don’t.” I gritted my teeth and balled my fists, needing to visualize the air pressing against him. “Not this time. I will not lose at the final moment and get beaten up for my efforts. I will win this time. Say uncle!”
Another elephant crashed to the ground. I gave a fourth a little push to do the same, since Cahal was obviously reacting to the sight of them hitting the dirt, lifelike or not.
“Uncle,” he finally said, going limp. “Uncle.”
I tore the air away, panting. Working quickly, I tore the rest of the scene down, letting my magic dissolve back into the world, raining down through the moon-soaked night like acid across a painting. Darkened grass took the place of the gumdrops. Just over a berm, the liquid-black ocean shimmered as it lapped against the flat sands. The twisted wood cleared to a landscaped and carefully tended front yard, little potholes dug into it from my boots or my scuffle with Darius. A large mansion wavered into view behind us, the pool in front of it lit from within with eerie blue light. When Darius had organized a retreat to hide me away from the world, he’d done it like he did everything else—in style.
Cahal wiped his lip with the back of his hand, his eyes burning into mine.
“The rules of uncle are clear and finite.” I held up my hands and took a step back. “Once you say it, you are declaring yourself the loser of the fight, and you cannot resume the attack after you’re freed. That would be cheating.”
“You always cheat.”
“Only when you’re not looking.”
He paused for a moment. “How’d you know about the elephants?”
“Yeah, bud. What’s the deal with that? You really don’t like to see elephants suffering, huh?”
His stare raised my small hairs, something very few people could do.
I jerked my head toward the house, seeing Darius hadn’t just recovered but was already dressed and pristine and waiting for us behind the bar. Emery sat in a chair with his ankle resting on his knee, watching as Penny lazily swam through the water. They’d laid the power-siphoning spell for me and then gone about their leisure time. How nice for them.
“You mentioned that elephants were your favorite animal,” I said, “and you tensed for a fraction of a second, so I thought I might play off that. I had no idea you’d go full-scale soupy about it.”
“Soupy?”
“Yeah, you know…” I sagged my shoulders, slumped forward, and pouted.
“No. It is not clear.”
“It affected you, basically.”
“Would’ve been easier just to say that at the get-go.”
“And miss out on a colorful explanation?” I grinned at him as we climbed the steps leading up to the pool area. I stopped there and turned toward the ocean, breathing in the warm, salty air and taking in the lovely view, knowing it looked even better in the day, the clear turquoise waters sitting beneath the royal-blue sky. “I literally want for nothing right now. Through Darius, I have all the money I could ever possibly need. I have a life of luxury. I have love and support. Most people would find this a dream come true.”
“The struggle of life defines you. You are not a pampered pet; you are a savage hunter. You were born to it. You were bred for it. You yearn to throw off the robes of secrecy and reach for your destiny.”
Here he went again, with his visions of grandeur. I didn’t bother arguing. He never seemed to hear me when I said that my sole desire was to go home to my comfortable house in New Orleans, take up my old job of bounty hunting, and chase some shifters around for sport. I missed taking pleasure in the little things, like trying to force the overly loud were-yeti to call me ma’am, just for funsies, and checking in with my neighbors, a surly crew who would kill for me. Not that my friends wouldn’t kill for me—they had—but it didn’t mean as much in the magical world. Humans digging an unmarked grave meant bros for life. Or…bras, in this case, since I was a chick.
“You cannot hide here forever,” Cahal finished.
“I know. The plan is to hide until I am better acquainted with my magic. Which is really coming along, thanks to you. It’s lucky for me you saw my father training one of his heirs.” Not so lucky for my half-brother, though. His other half was human, and he’d died a miserable death in the Underworld.
“You asked about the elephants.” He fell silent for a while. “They are my favorite, yes, though my pain in seeing their death only…makes me soupy—”
“There you go. Now you’re getting it.”
“—because of my relationship with you.”
“I’m not following.”
“That is because you are incredibly impatient, and I have not yet explained.” His look suggested violence, and since I wanted to hear this, I pursed my lips in a show of silence. No baiting the druid when I wanted info. I’d learned the hard way. “I knew the last heir, as I’ve said. Not terribly well, but well enough that I was invited to watch him blossom under Lucifer’s care in the Dark Kingdom—”
“Wait.” I turned and put the edge of my hand against his arm to stop him. “You were in the Dark Kingdom?”
“Yes.”
“You got past the fog?”
“This was before the treaty your father was backed into by the elves. There was no fog. Any creature could come and go as they pleased, enjoying the sights, as Lucifer intended.”
“The treaty…” My perfect recall system, something I’d gained from my bond to Darius, brought up what he was talking about. Darius had been schooling me on all the politics—stuff I didn’t really want to know but probably should learn just in case. They were long, boring lectures only made bearable because of the frequent breaks he took to pleasure me. “Right, right. Lucifer tried to carve out a space in the Realm for his son, who was deteriorating in the Underworld because of his human side—he didn’t have the lineage of the gods like I do. The elves denied him. If Lucifer’s son had wanted to simply live in the Realm, under their rule, that would’ve been fine—or so the records say—but Lucifer wanted to create his own territory in the Realm. They tried to kick him out, he decided he’d just take their throne, and after a long, bloody battle, the elves forced him to return down below and his son stupidly followed. The son died, Lucifer was pissed, but the treaty held. What about the lack of oxygen, though? How’d you deal with that?”
“Again, that wasn’t an issue at the time. Now, however…” He paused. “I am god-touched, as you know.” Something he didn’t often speak of because it would make him a target for other magical people who wanted the same gifts. It was the same sort of magic Penny had stolen from a horrible little goblin we were sent to get rid of, and then shared with Emery through their bond. “My power can have a nulling effect on Lucifer’s, just like Penny’s spells null your magic.”
“And that’s why you can withstand my fire to some degree, and push away my walls.”
“Unless you correctly apply your power, yes. The fog and air weren’t a problem at that time, and now I can successfully walk through his fog and breathe in the inner court of the Dark Kingdom, even though his spells mask the air. He cannot use magic to deny me access—”
“Wait, wait…” My hand was back against his arm. “They mask the air? There is actually air in the center of the kingdom?”
“He does not live in a vacuum-sealed bubble. Of course there is air.”
“I hear you—I realize that you are calling me dense—but seriously, how was I supposed to know that? Physics in homeschool didn’t cover the Underworld.” I blew out a breath. “Wow. That’s a shocker. So wait…Penny and Emery can get into the Underworld since they have the god-touched magic?”
“Yes, though they shouldn’t, unless you or Lucifer strip away the magical pitfalls designed to impede their kind. There are magical traps for those who don’t belong that being god-touched won’t totally nullify.”
“Huh.”
“Getting back to the point…” he said, and I curled my lips inward. “The Underworld changed the heir significantly, and not just because the magic corroded his human side. Power corrupted his mind.
“When I think back on it, I must admit that the heir started out wanting. If he were in your position now, the only thing he’d want was more. More riches, more luxury, more power. He’d lord his good fortune over others. In your position, he’d force your friends, the natural dual-mages, further into the vampire’s employ so as to control them. Or, at least, that’s the kind of person he became.”
“And you were the friend he tried to force?”
“More of an acquaintance, but yes. He asked me to be his guard, and I refused. He tried to lure me with riches and power. Another refusal. The next lure was women—their version of women, at any rate. Then he tried to beguile me into a contract, which was the most laughable attempt of all. It showed his ignorance of how my kind work. And finally, he tried to force me.”
“He tortured an elephant?”
Again came the look.
“It’s not that I’m impatient,” I replied, “it’s that you take forever to get to the point.”
“It is not your impatience that is the problem at the moment—it is your thinking capacity. There are no elephants in the Underworld.”
“You’ve learned Darius’s trick of how to pleasantly call me an idiot.”
“Yes.” He waited for me to frown at him before going on. “Julius trapped me for a full year, beating me every day, trying to break me and turn me to his cause.”
“Wow. There goes your friendship. But, obviously, he wasn’t strong enough to break you.”
“No one has been strong enough to break me, though many have tried.”
I widened my eyes at that. It occurred to me that I knew very little about the deadly man standing beside me, and suddenly I wanted to amend that fact, if only because it sounded more interesting than living in the lap of luxury.
“Your father, who had allowed his heir free rein in what he called ‘side pursuits,’ finally stepped in and commanded I be released. He did not like what his heir had turned into, I could tell, both because Julius was slightly…unhinged—”
“Just slightly?”
“—and because he was ineffective.”
“You mean he didn’t have the power to break you.”
“Correct. He was an embarrassment on two levels.”
“My dear old dad isn’t such a good guy, I take it.”
“He exists in balance. He can love and hate, lust and kill. Like you. Like me. He looked at his child the way humans look at theirs. His son was…getting soupy…”
“Nope. Missed the mark that time.”
“Lucifer tried to get help for his son. He thought the Underworld was responsible for breaking Julius down. That the human side of him was too weak for the Underworld. And in some ways he was right, but as I said, I suspect power also corrupted him. Regardless, that is why Lucifer sought refuge for his son in the Realm, as any parent would.”
“He also let his son torture an innocent acquaintance for a year…”
“We’re not all perfect.”
“Wow. I think you are out of balance, because your level of forgiveness is on par with an angel.”
“I am in balance.”
Shivers covered my body. I didn’t want to know the darkness that clearly lurked within him.
Well…kind of didn’t, and kind of did. I just didn’t want it directed at me.
“Do you ever chase shifters around for sport?” I asked. He gave me a funny look, but I waved it away. “Never mind. It also should be noted that Lucifer would’ve rather gone to war to get what he wanted than take the obvious solution and send his son back to live in the human world.”
“A parent would move heaven and earth for their child. Lucifer is no different.”
I squinted, because yes, he was different. My mother had sacrificed big time to keep me safe, and Penny’s mother had done the same for her. Neither of them would have turned a blind eye if we’d started torturing people in our rooms. My dear old dad would not win any awards for father of the year, and I wouldn’t put it past him to torture me to bring me to heel. Clearly the practice was tolerated, and I knew for a fact that Lucifer’s power had a larger range than mine. If anyone could break me, I had every reason to believe it was him.
I sighed. “We still have not covered how elephants could possibly fit into all of this, since they also do not exist in the Realm.”
“Now your impatience is the problem. After I was released, I washed my hands of Julius. I left the Underworld and did not look back. I haven’t been there since.”
“You hold grudges. Got it.”
“Julius showed his displeasure by mutilating the elephants that roamed freely on my Brink property and delivering them to my doorstep. I’d saved those elephants from…what we’d call poachers now. They had refuge on my estate. They were the closest thing I had to family, as alone as I am in this life. It was like mutilating a pet, in a way, but more meaningful. I grieved heavily that I was the ultimate cause of their demise.”
“Hmm. So my using elephants was a pretty low blow.”
“Certainly not as low as punching me in the nut sack.”
“It’s lower, believe me. I’ll punch a dick any ol’ day and twice on Sunday. I do not care. Take that as a warning. But seeing me re-kill your not-pets must have been rough. My bad.”
“The memory has faded. My worry is less about seeing a fake elephant die than it is about an heir who would kill a defenseless animal out of spite. Those elephants represent my fear of what you may become.”
Chapter 2
I braced my hands on my hips. “That was quite a truth bomb. But not to worry—I don’t want to lord my power over people. I’m happy living in the Brink, and even though it seems like I have everything I could possibly want, it is at the expense of my freedom. I’d prefer to be left alone and get on with my life. You’re in no danger of losing not-pets. Not from me, anyway.”
“What is your freedom worth? Your friends’ lives? Your beloved’s?”
“Darius calls me his beloved, not the other way around. I’m not nearly old enough to use that term of endearment. But no, my freedom is not worth any of those things, which is why I went down into the Underworld rather than letting my father come find me up here.”
After being in Cahal’s company every day for the last couple of months, I could read the subtle nuances in his blank stares. I’d just answered a question.
“Surely you knew that those rumors were about me,” I said, turning and heading toward the others. It had taken a while, but my elephant question had been answered. Time to get back to being pampered in luxury. Man, my life was dull.
I couldn’t even go annoy other vampires, even though this place was a sort of refuge for them. Usually they’d bring a whole host of humans and eat and bang and do whatever else vampires got up to when the boss wasn’t around. Since I was being hidden here, however, the campus was closed for “renovations,” something Darius did every few years anyway. It was just me, him, a druid who didn’t know staring was rude, and now my mage friends. That was it. None of them would run if I chased them. What kind of sport was that?
“I could really go for a shifter bar right about now,” I murmured.
Everything okay? Darius thought as I neared.
Since I had demon magic that could pluck thoughts out of people’s heads (unless they knew how to shield me), we could speak telepathically, one-way radio style. The bond between us also allowed the sharing of emotion, and that seemed to provide Darius with all the guidance he needed to guess my thoughts. With anyone else, that would have made me nervous.
“Yeah. Cahal was just telling me that he worried I’d get recruited by my dad, lose my mind, and try to kill his elephants. The guy is a real downer as far as those things go.”
Without further comment, Darius handed a straight whiskey in a plastic red cup over the mahogany bar. He could tell that I wasn’t in the mood for crystal and ice cubes and finery. I nodded in thanks, my gaze lingering on his beautiful hazel eyes, green specks floating within them, and felt my heart squish.
I was in this majestic hideout for a reason, yes. It just wasn’t the reason everyone thought.
On the surface, I had consented to this little getaway so I could learn and practice and stay away from the public eye. But in reality, I was allowing Darius to protect me in the best way he knew how. I was here for him, and for my friends, who would rush into danger to protect me. Who wouldn’t listen if I told them to run to safety.
Growing up, it had been just my mom and me. We only had each other, and because she’d always feared what would happen if I entered the larger magical world, I had contented myself with learning my magic and sticking to the woods or the tiny town where we bought supplies.
She’d died when I was nineteen, and I was so shocked and shaken by the loss that I’d continued to hide what I was out of practice. But that hadn’t stopped me from seeking magical work. I could’ve fudged the paperwork for a human job, or worked under the table somewhere. I could’ve earned money away from the magical world.
But instead I became a magical bounty hunter.
Hiding from danger wasn’t in my blood. It just wasn’t. I couldn’t stay in this place forever.
I loved Darius, though, with all my blackened heart. I loved my dual-mage friends Callie and Dizzy, though I would only admit it in drunken hug-fests, and I loved my natural dual-mage friends, who managed to visit me a few times a month even though they had a Mages’ Guild to help run and new recruits to train. I even strongly liked the prickly and incredibly closed-off druid who beat my ass on the regular. For them, I would stay here, out of harm’s way, and out of trouble.
At least until the screws in my noggin started to come loose.
I blew out a breath, vacating the bar so Cahal could grab a drink, and plopped down on the sunless sun chair next to Emery.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” He glanced at my red cup. “You can take the girl out of the bad neighborhood…”
“Darius hasn’t figured out how to break me of my desire to slum it in this fine place.”
“You’re the challenge he never knew he needed.”
“Something like that.” I watched Cahal accept a sparkling glass of pink stuff in a crystal goblet. Pastel pink was the guy’s favorite color, but he hated pastel purple. I did not get it. At least he didn’t love yellow. That color made me want to punch things. “So what’s happening in the world at large?”
Emery heaved a deep breath and leaned back a little. “Demons. They’re cropping up—”
Darius was beside us in a moment, the speed with which he got there at odds with the slow, deliberate way he pulled a chair around, cognac gently swaying within the snifter he held.
“They’re cropping up all over the country,” Emery continued, and as if on a five-second delay, I felt a nasty spell hover in the air.
I grinned at the natural mage, a guy used to fighting for his life on the run. He wasn’t someone to spook, at any rate.
“You’re quick,” I said, “but he would’ve had you.”
“I have a bad habit of letting down my guard around him,” Emery murmured.
“You must know that I wouldn’t harm you,” Darius said, unperturbed, as he sat beside me. He took a sip of his drink, something he only allowed himself to do if he knew I would be on hand to give him blood should he need it.
I shivered with the memories of how pleasant it was to be his blood donor.
“There are never any certainties with a vampire,” Emery returned, and he had a point.
“Who’s sending the demons?” I asked, watching Penny do laps in the pool. Her slinky little bikini had likely been picked out by Marie, Penny’s biggest fan and Darius’s very fashionable vampire child.
“Yeah, that’s the question.” Emery rubbed his nose. “They’re being brought up by different summoners. Some of the circles are simple, and others are ancient in design. Dizzy is studying those with great interest. He knows how they work, but he’s getting more info on the details and the time period they were in vogue. That should help us trace the creator.”
It’s Ja, Darius thought, referring to the extreme elder vampire Penny had unintentionally awoken. She is using those demons as a distraction, as protection, and as trusted workers. She has illegally bonded two that I know of, neither of which have been able to get her through the fog barrier in the Underworld.
Bonding with demons was pretty gross if you asked me—I’d much rather fight them—but then, she was a vampire. Different set of ew factors, I guessed.
“Does anyone else know?” I asked him, purposely keeping my words vague. Emery shouldn’t want to piece this together, something he clearly realized from the way he entwined his fingers over his stomach and let his gaze drift away. It was wise to stay away from vampire politics. I would’ve if I could’ve, but my bond with Darius meant I had no choice but to be involved.
No. Not even Vlad, I don’t think. I wonder if she purposely revealed her hand to me. She has a grasp on politics and survival the likes of which I have never seen. Her experience is clear, and it’s just as clear she is jumping back into the thick of it. She has a plan, but I do not know what that is.
“So two types of circles calling demons?” I asked.
“A lot of different circles, actually,” Emery said, rejoining the conversation. “All power levels, which suggests several different mages, witches, humans—whoever—are doing the calling. Probably at the behest of Vlad. Other than the ancient circles, nothing really distinguishes them. A few of the demons have been called to distract shifters from changing parties, but most of them seem to be…” Emery glanced at me.
“Trying to goad me back into the world of the living?” I finished. “Trying to make me out myself to the demons?”
His nod was so slight that I wondered if he’d meant to nod at all. He knew this was a sticking point with Darius.
Sure enough, I felt a flash of anger through our bond.
Darius and Vlad had always maintained a respectful distance from each other when it came to their professional endeavors. As a courtesy, they did not step on each other’s toes. There were two reasons for that, one being that Vlad had made Darius. There was a connection there, even though vampires who had reached elder status no longer had to offer their maker a percentage of their income or any sort of fealty.
The second reason had to do with the type of vampires they were. Making it to elder status was no small feat. It required a cunning individual who could “play the game” through the ages and adapt with the times. It required a ruthless sort of mind backed by a great team. Vlad and Darius both had this, and they’d always known better than to go up against each other. Until now.
Apparently, I was motivation enough for Vlad to cross the line.
Well, more to the point, my father was motivation enough. Vlad wanted Lucifer’s favor. He wanted him in his corner when he tried to overthrow the elves.
He was absolutely stepping on Darius’s toes, and it had not gone unnoticed. The only thing was that I didn’t know what Darius planned to do about it. I had somehow given him back his humanity, and he was loath to actively go against his maker, a sentiment Vlad didn’t share regarding his child. Darius was between a proverbial rock and a hard place.
I planned to let him sort it out himself. Vampire politics were no fun. The little I knew gave me a headache.
“He has been trying to find where I’ve stashed you.” Darius calmly sipped his drink. “If not for the natural dual-mages’ magical concealment”—he nodded at Emery, giving his thanks—“he would’ve already found us.”
“That must really piss him off.” I pushed up with the intent to get more whiskey.
Darius was up in a flash and reaching for my cup. Emery flinched.
I laughed this time. “Still too slow, bro. So. Some of these demons are being called by Vlad and his minions, others are called by…this other being.” I bit my lip to keep from mentioning Ja’s name. “But you said there are probably human and mage summoners, too. Do you think Vlad and the other ones are controlling them all, or are there more people behind this?”
“It’s likely Vlad,” Emery said, “though we have limited proof. The types of demons are…mostly the same.” I caught his slight pause. “They are being called at inopportune times, though, and for that you need someone who can go out in the sun. Vlad has a lot of people on the payroll—getting someone to do his bidding wouldn’t be a problem. Though a few have been…stronger than the others.”
“How much stronger?” I asked.
“Quite a bit,” he replied. “And seemingly without the agenda as the others. Not inclined to cause mischief, but more to look around, we think.”
“Look around?” I asked.
Emery stared at Penny. Cahal shifted where he stood off to the side.
“Ah,” I said, really good at reading these people at this point. “Daddy is making house calls, only he doesn’t know which house to visit, so he’s sending his minions to search for clues.”
“We don’t know for sure,” Emery admitted. “We’ve had some powerful demons pop up from rudimentary circles. It’s as if they’ve pushed the intended demon out of the way and hitched a ride to the surface. Not even the ancient circles could call demons of this magnitude. Not on purpose. We have no proof, but while the powerful ones have popped up everywhere, there are higher concentrations in Seattle, New Orleans…your old neighborhood…”
I accepted my refilled cup from Darius. “You mean my current neighborhood, with the house that I very much still own and live in? I will go back there.”
“You will have no need of such a—”
I held up a finger for Darius. “Don’t start.”
“If you emerge—”
I swung my hand to stop Cahal. “You either. It is my home, I love it, and I will go back there. End of story.”
Silence fell over us.
Until Penny got out of the pool. “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing.” I waved her away. “Vlad being a pest, demons hitching rides—the usual.”
“Oh yeah.” Penny grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself. Emery jumped up and offered her his chair, circling around the pool to pull another one over. She gave him a dopey smile usually reserved for lovesick lambs before sinking into it, her hair in a wet and twisted ponytail. “The latest ones coming up are hard to kill. Emery and I helped take out some of the ones in Seattle. It’s pretty strange. If the shifters don’t have some of their more powerful pack members on the case, or help from another powerful magical creature, like mages or fae, then those suckers just have a look around, mind their business, and bugger off. They act differently than the ones summoned by Vlad’s people and whoever’s responsible for the ancient circles—which is probably Ja, because that vampire seems to have a thing for me. I cannot shake her.”
Darius stiffened. Clearly that was information he hadn’t been given. Emery’s grimace said he would’ve liked to keep it under wraps, probably to use as currency with Darius, but Penny had a habit of messing up everyone’s plans. I liked her more for it.
“They aren’t in the area to fight,” Penny said. “Seems like they’re playing detective or something.”
“Again, we have no proof,” Emery said.
I laughed. “Give it up, Emery. She’s giving away all your secrets. Penny picks up on magical intent, and she can tell those demons are not after violence, like the others. They’re looking for me.”
“But not finding you,” Darius said.
“They won’t find you here unless they capture Emery and me and torture the information out of us.” Penny looked around.
Darius instantly rose. “Forgive me. What would you like to drink?”
“Oh. Just a—”
“Shot of tequila,” I said quickly.
Her dark look made me grin. I hated that she couldn’t stay all the time. She really was a great distraction.
“Sparkling water,” she said to Darius.
“She means Mexican sparkling water. In other words, a shot of tequila. With a worm,” I added.
She leveled a finger at me, but it wasn’t her middle one, sadly. She probably wanted it to be, though. “Number one, that’s not even accurate, and number two, I am not going to get drunk this time, so don’t even try.”
She most definitely was going to get drunk. I loved drunk Penny, mostly because of how worried Emery got that she’d tango with me and do something crazy. The unpredictability was a hoot.
But seriously, what I wouldn’t give for a shifter bar. Drunk Penny and a bunch of meathead shifters trying to throw their weight around, only to end up running for their lives from yours truly. That could cure anyone’s boredom.
“I doubt a demon could capture either of you,” Darius said, and delivered a sparkling water, the traitor, before sitting down again.
“Even if they did, they couldn’t crack me.” Ferocity rang in Emery’s voice.
“Sorry, Reagan, but they might crack me.” Penny’s large blue eyes looked at me sorrowfully. “I’m not as tough as Emery.”
I waved her away. “I wouldn’t expect you to try. If someone grabbed you, including Lucifer, I’d show up myself and rip you free. Don’t worry about it.”
“The time will come when you will tire of hiding—”
“Nope.” I held up a finger to Cahal. “Still on a timeout with all of that. Not now, bub. We’re having a nice time, just now, trying to talk Penny into drinking too much and doing something crazy.”
She shook her head adamantly and clutched her water with both hands.
“If you will excuse me.” Darius rose gracefully, and I watched the play of muscle under his black button-down shirt, his pecs popping and his shoulders straining the fabric. “I will put something on for dinner.”
I smiled devilishly at Emery. “Just watch. He’ll put on something that Penny absolutely loves so that she’ll forget to keep the rest of your secrets.”
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