RedFire
Chapter 11
The human’s scent trail veered all over town, marking the brick sidewalks and squares, the shops and court yards, and it had made tracking her after the cemetery a challenge. Until this afternoon. Sable trotted back and forth down the one particular street where Shayanna’s sweet mortal aroma intensified.
“Little vixen,” he cursed under his breath. “Slut of a huntress . . .” His insults grew more and more profane as he searched the street, sniffing for her.
Above him, Krathsadon and Mirapish flew, their wing beats clipping quickly, marking pace with his earth bound, plodding steps. He despised his minions for the very fact that they—unlike him—could fly. Not on beautiful wings as he’d once done, but still, they possessed that freedom.
You can walk through walls, scale mountainsides, bound across half-mile rivers, he reminded himself. You possess at least some of your former strength and independence.
His own dark soul whispered back at him, A shadow of what you once were, glorious one.
A bitter sneer formed on his lips, forcing them over his sharp teeth. Shayanna was his chance for redemp tion; if he kept to the prearranged plan, then he might have a chance at being freed from his cursed centaur form. The work beast form had grown almost impossible to endure, the heaviness of it, so awkward and ungainly. The fucking stink of the manure—the inconvenience of having his minions brush his coat every day. And, gods damn it all, not being able to clean his own private parts.
All at once his heart began beating furiously. For the pure pleasure of it he summoned a sword and lanced it upward, pricking Mirapish through his right wing. The smaller demon warbled in the air, and Sable laughed raucously.
“Stay on guard, little one,” he cautioned his follower, who yelped and, with an offended look, finally began fly ing correctly again. With a threatening glare, Sable ex tended his sword toward the underling’s twin, who gave an obsequious smile.
In their demonic hierarchy, the less powerful Djinn had no choice but to serve Sable; he’d acquired them fair and square in a desert battle, and now he owned them. He could torture them all he pleased, and when he got annoyed or bitter or frustrated, that was exactly what he chose to do.
“Shayanna has spent time near here,” Sable declared, ushering the twins to the street. They landed with a buzzing of wings and a graceless thud.
Sable continued, “She probably lives here, right in this area.”
Mirapish’s red eyes narrowed to pinpoints. “How do you know, my lord?”
Sable sighed. The little moron. “Surely even you can smell that annoying stink of her? The perfume of her”—he spat the last word—“goodness.”
Krathsadon’s mouth opened, fangs lengthening. “Pretty, pretty huntress.” It was about all the idiot could say about Shay, but then again, Sable had bought him from a sex-lord demon, so he’d been raised on a steady diet of lust.
“Huntress, whatever,” Sable hissed back. “Not that it matters. The bitch only knows the basics.”
Not totally true, he had to remind himself as he turned and paced the street again. She’d freed herself from his paralyzing spell the other night, and such counterwarfare had been the stuff of bigger guns. Undoubtedly she’d been taught a few useful tricks. In the huntress and hunter game, it all came down to words. Sure, knives and switchblades, throwing stars and swords, all those things were useful to their kind in battle. But in the end it all came down to words—living words of power.
“What shall we do, my lord?” Mirapish asked, his twin bobbing his head in unison.
Sable shook his head. “I’m going to find her dwelling. It’s here, right here close by; I scent it. Just follow me.”
Shay sat behind the long wooden counter of their downtown shop, surfing the Net, which, so far in the past few days, had been her only recourse for information. The morning after the insanity at Bonaventure she’d awoken late, only to find that her brothers had pad-locked the cellar. Plenty of hollering and arguing had ensued, but they’d proved an implacable force.
She’d even thought about getting her best friend, Angela, queen of all things technical and mechanical, to pick the lock. But her brothers never left the house at the same time, so that plan had been a bust. Besides, Angela hadn’t stopped bugging her about why breaking into the cellar had suddenly become so urgent. No way was Shay ready to tell her the truth, either.
To say that she was seething, hopping mad would have been the understatement of the century. So they’d arrived at a stalemate—she wouldn’t tell them what happened; they wouldn’t let her into the family archives. She figured that eventually she was the one who would win, given that she held the primary information.
Still, she wasn’t about to take the chance that the de mons would come back for her, so although she’d in sisted on returning to work today, she was still staying out at the house. Her apartment was a one-bedroom over a carriage house, and she’d asked her landlady to look after her cat, Sunshine. Lydia had assumed a sym pathetic voice on the phone, telling her they were all so sorry to hear of her mama’s passing. Shay had been more than happy to let her think that she’d been staying with her brothers because of their recent loss.
In the past two days she’d looked at every painting of angels, demons, and winged men that Google would spit out at her. She’d read about spiritual beings she’d never even heard of, some mythical and others supposedly real, but nothing she’d found came close to the entity that had taken her in his arms and flown her through the night sky.
In a pathetic attempt to re-create the emotions he’d stirred inside of her, she’d also saved dozens of pictures of Leda and the Swan paintings and sculptures—in fact, one in particular was now displayed on her screen. It was erotic, more so than any of the other artistic representations she’d unearthed. Leda lay on her back, legs spread wide, while Zeus, the mighty warrior come to Earth, draped his wings atop her belly, his bill nuzzling beneath her bare breasts. Shay stared at the painting again and began to laugh. The pair’s satisfaction was so obvious, Leda might as well have held the proverbial postcoital cigarette in her relaxed hand.
But more than any other image, she was drawn to the sketch she’d made the other night, after arriving at home. The drawing had seemed to spill forth out of her, almost like automatic writing, except it was a picture, an image of something that hadn’t happened. At least, not yet.
With an upward glance to be sure she was still alone, she opened the drawer underneath the counter and re trieved her sketch pad. There the two of them were, fly ing together, she holding his right hand, her feet floating behind. Beneath them the marshes and river flowed, and the landscape seemed lit by golden late-day light. Lift ing a careful fingertip, she reached to touch one of his wings.
Suddenly her fallen angel’s voice filled her mind, recall ing the stirring poetry whispered in her ear. That voice. It had been as rich as Belgian chocolate, soothing and arous ing at the exact same time. She sighed, and for one long moment she let her eyes drift shut and actually heard the sound of his beating wings, felt his supernaturally warm chest against her own, imagined herself on her back as his mighty winged body pushed between her bare legs.
Get a grip, girl, she cautioned herself, and slid the sketch pad back into its hidden spot within the drawer. The bell over the door to the shop chimed, and she jolted, reaching for her laptop. Her Google searches were ten deep, and she was about to tile them shut when she saw that it was Jamie sauntering toward her. Not here, not now, James.
“You’re supposed to be closed,” he told her. He was dressed for going out on the town; it was Friday night, so he had on a button-down Polo shirt and khakis. For Jamie, that was dressing up.
“I’ve got band practice at seven. Figured I’d hang out here and see if any Friday night stragglers came stroll ing in. Tourists, hippies . . . demons. You know, regular foot traffic.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be out combating the forces of evil?”
He draped himself on the other side of her counter in a forced casual posture—as if she didn’t know exactly why he’d suddenly deigned to show up at the shop. “I have a date.”
“Well, that really is battling evil, if it’s that chick from Thunderbolt you’ve been seeing lately.” Jamie’s taste in women ran notoriously toward the booby, blond, and not so bright.
“You know why I’m here.” He tipped his head down ward and hit her with a kick ass stare. “I’m done messing around about this. You were attacked the other night. I want to know who that man was who did it.”
“He didn’t attack me!” she blurted in an outrage, and leaped to her feet. “He’s the one who protected—” Shay snapped her mouth shut and slowly sank back onto her stool across from him.
Jamie’s eyes widened slightly, and he smiled in triumph. “I see,” he told her in an annoyingly patient voice. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“No,” she told him, closing her laptop protectively. It wouldn’t do to have him snooping in her cached files. “We’re not. Not until you give me access to the lore. It’s tit for tat, dude.”
He tapped his fingers on the counter and glanced at his watch. “I’m meeting Candy in ten minutes, so I gotta jet. But this thing between us? This standoff? It’s end ing tonight. You’re going to tell us exactly what you saw, experienced, whatever.”
“So you’re willing to unlock the cellar?”
“Not until I know what we’re dealing with.” His BlackBerry rang, the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly cutting them off loudly.
He put his back to her, talking in low tones, and it was clear that it wasn’t Candy calling on the phone. He glanced at his watch impatiently and murmured some thing about canceling his plans. When he finished, he pocketed his phone again and turned to her.
“Candy’s going to be so bummed,” she offered brightly. “And pretty soon she’ll get tired of dating a warrior.”
“Shay, I just want to help you.” He reached for one of the satchels of sage and rosemary they sold as spiri tual protection and sniffed it, holding it close to his nose. The packets were stacked high in a basket on the coun ter, and he dropped it back in, pawing around the other neatly tied bags. “I’m really worried about you,” he said, “whether you believe that or not. What can I do to make all this better?”
“Pretty simple there, James. One, you can tell me what you know about that letter.” She raised two fingers. “Two, you can tell me why I seem to have a unique calling, and three”—she held up a third finger—“you can give me some information.”
“What kind of information?” Of course, he’d ignored points one and two, but she was just desperate enough—just obsessed enough with her winged hottie—that she was willing to give a little ground. She placed her hands flat on the counter, sucked in a deep breath, and went for it.
“Have you ever heard of good demons?” she asked, sounding as nonchalant as possible. “You know, the kind that actually protect humans for some bizarre reason?”
He shook his head. “No such thing. It’s not in the lore . . . just not possible.”
She shook her head, too. “Maybe there’s more infor mation than what we have in the family archives; ever think of that?”
He reached for another packet of herbs, sniffing those, too. His fidgeting was his poker tell, even though none of them had ever cared to point that out to him. Either he was hiding something or he was just plain nervous. “Yes, of course,” he said after a moment, “but all the demonic varieties have been thoroughly documented over the years, and I’ve never come across anything like that.”
She’d known he would say that, but she’d been chas ing a thought over the past few days and figured she might as well hit him with it. “What if there’s some thing like a good demon in the Bible? Would you believe it then?”
“When it comes to spiritual warfare, I’ve studied the scriptures intensively. There are no good demons,” he said in an emphatic voice. “They are the fallen angels from heaven, period.”
“Explain the Nephilim then.” She leaned back in her chair. “The Old Testament mentions them several times . . . maybe they were good demons. It’s possible.”
“Nobody knows what the Nephilim were. But it doesn’t matter, because they don’t exist anymore—at least, not according to the texts. They were destroyed by God.”
“The Bible doesn’t actually say they were destroyed,” she argued. “You’re leaping to conclusions.”
He snorted. “So, what are you, a Bible scholar now?”
“I went to Sunday school, same as you,” she told him in annoyance. “And unlike you, I actually listened.”
“I conduct spiritual warfare based on the holy texts. Don’t give me shit.”
“And you bind demons with that mouth?” She gave him her best incredulous look. “God must be ashamed of you for talking like you do.”
He scowled and answered defensively, “Been working on that.”
“I’ll ask again,” she said as calmly as she could. “Is there any precedent whatsoever for a good demon?”
Jamie gave his head a slow, emphatic shake. “Shay, there are angels and there are demons, and as far as I know—with my limited, apparently disdained knowledge—there ain’t nothing in between.”
“Uh-huh.” She forced her expression into a neutral one.
You didn’t fly the heavens with a winged demon who was, no pun intended, hell-bent on protecting you.
The door chimed, interrupting them, and Shay looked up to discover a middle aged man with a panicky ex pression on his jowly face. She moved around the coun ter and met him halfway toward the door. Hers was a profession of calming the worried and fretful.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he began, eyes searching the shop nervously. His right eye betrayed a tic. “But I’ve been hearing these noises in my house late at night. . . .”
The man proceeded to chatter anxiously about the paranormal activity at his home. As he launched into his tale, Jamie made a motion that said, Don’t bring me into this, and pointed at his watch. She put her back to him and spent the next five minutes reassuring the man and teaching him some sacred prayers. When his wife entered the shop, she chastised him for being superstitious and he left, thanking Shay profusely.
Finally she had them out the door and turned the latch, flipping the sign to CLOSED.
And found Jamie hunched over her laptop, snooping.
“Hey, don’t look at my stuff!” she said, storming toward him. She grabbed hold of her laptop and snapped it shut. “That’s rude to read someone else’s private things.”
He glanced up at her slowly, smiling. “You think he was an angel, don’t you?” Excitement twinkled in his green eyes. “That’s what the guy was, some kind of protective spirit with wings? You actually saw wings?”
You don’t know the half of it.
“Trust me,” she said, unplugging her laptop and pow ering it down, “he was too twisted to be any kind of angel. That’s why my money is on good demon.”
“Twisted . . . how, exactly?”
“He tried to seduce me.” She dared a peek at Jamie, whose eyes narrowed furiously. “I mean, not really, but he was just very . . . persuasive.”
Jamie leaped off the stool and began pacing. “That fucking bastard. What did he try on you?”
“He saved my life, all right? He’s not your problem,” she argued, wanting to defend her strange protector. “Really, Jamie, I wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t shown up. So he’s not my problem either. . . .”
“I’m not following. You just said—”
“What he told you about the ancient demons?” she said, talking over him.“They surrounded me at Bonaven ture that night. I was a goner, and by all rights I shouldn’t even be here right now. But then out of nowhere that guy showed up and battled them off. Then”—she took a deep breath, because she knew the next revelation was really going to freak Jamie out—“he flew me to safety and put me down in Forsyth Park.”
Very quietly, Jamie repeated, “He flew you to safety. Flew. You.”
“In his arms,” she added in a whisper.
Jamie dropped his own voice just as low. “In the sky?”
“I don’t know . . .it felt like Neverland—okay? I could see the earth below, the lights of the city, but we also seemed to be moving through some spiritual dimension or something. Very surreal.”
Jamie began pacing all over the place, practically jumping with excitement. “You encountered a new type of entity, Shay. That’s what you’re telling me. Some thing that’s never been documented by anyone in our family or even mentioned at all in any of our texts or scriptures.”
She shrugged, thinking how irrelevant that fact was to her. “I guess.” She sighed softly. “He was amazing, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. And he made me feel . . . safe. So totally safe.”
Jamie halted in his tracks. “You sound like you’ve got a crush on this thing.”
She tilted her head sideways, scowling. “He’s not a thing; he’s a man. Or a creature or . . . hell, Jamie, I don’t know what he is. But he’s not part of the pack that attacked me, and he did save my life.”
“Demons don’t save lives, so you can rule that guess out.”
“Maybe it’s like you said—he’s a new breed or something.”
Jamie slapped a hand on the counter. “Wait until I tell Mace. This defies everything we’ve ever been taught. This is a sea change for the Shades. It’s huge.”
She shook her head, taking a step backward. “Don’t tell Mason.”
“Why not?”
She pressed her eyes shut. “Because he’s already so distant from me as it is, ever since he got out of the ma rines and came home from Iraq. He tells you everything and tells me nothing, and it’s not like I don’t want to hear about it. I know it was traumatic, but that’s not a good enough reason for him to be so shut down to me.”
“Shay, look, it’s not . . .” Jamie began, but then he dropped his gaze and said nothing more.
“It’s not me?” she prompted, anger rising inside. “Ap parently it’s entirely me, since he can talk to you. I can’t risk his pulling away any further.”
“Shay, what Mace is going through has nothing to do with you.”
It was bad enough that Mason had shut her out lately after coming home from Iraq. The marines had diag nosed him, citing an acute case of post traumatic stress disorder as the reason for his honorable discharge. Still, Shay couldn’t shake the hunch that something more had happened to her big brother overseas. Something that was so spiritually dark that he refused to talk about it. Or, at least, not to her, and her only hope was that eventually Mason would start to open up about the experience.
So what would happen if he suspected they weren’t even blood related? If he figured out that she was differ ent from the other members of the Angel family? That she saw things they didn’t, sketched entities when they didn’t? No, Mason could never know about everything happening to her right now.
“Jamie, I know that I’m special. I mean, not like I’m so wonderfully amazing, not that.” She paused, trying to gather her fast-moving thoughts. “But I think there’s something different about me . . . that I’m not like you and Mason. Those demons I saw at the funeral . . . the sketches. I’m a woman—in this family—seeing demons? I’m not like y’all.”
He said nothing, just glanced away—it was another poker tell at a time when she was trying to read him more deeply.
“I’m right, aren’t I? I have some kind of unusual calling?” she persisted. “Because I’m adopted?”
Reaching into the pocket of her jeans, she retrieved the well-worn letter that she’d been carrying for the past few months and slapped it onto the counter. “Who was this thing from? Huh?” She smoothed out the creases in the paper, flattening the now-familiar epistle. “You tell me who sent this to me.”
Jamie stared down at the paper and seemed ready to answer, reading the handwritten words once again without speaking. Studying it, he opened his mouth, and Shay steeled herself, knowing that whatever he said next would surely change her life. But all at once his damned BlackBerry rang again, and he whipped it to his ear, letting the letter flutter out of his hand.
She stood waiting, expectant and painfully curious, but when he hung up he was already jogging toward the door.
“I’ve got to roll,” he called over his shoulder. “The team needs me. But we’ll talk all about this tonight.”
“The ol’ ‘team’ excuse again, huh?” She busied herself with gathering her papers. “Same revolving door of tes tosterone recruits these days, or have you actually gotten a few women involved?”
He leveled her with a stare. “Don’t give me shit, okay? The lineup hasn’t changed in the past couple of months. You saw everyone at St. Pat’s while we were patrol ling downtown. You took care of Evan that afternoon, remember?”
“No, I helped nurse Evan back to consciousness after three Asian demons had just about soul-sucked him dry. You were lucky you didn’t lose him that day, poor guy. And what would Emma have done?” Their second cousin Emma was best friends with Evan, and had abso lutely no idea that he was a member of Jamie’s team. “I wouldn’t have wanted to look her in the eye and tell her why Evan died.”
“You sound resentful, Sis.” Jamie studied her hard. “You always do when it comes to our family enterprise. St. Pat’s is critical; you know that.”
The demons loved St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah; it was almost as much of a field day for them as Mardi Gras in New Orleans. And every year—at least, accord ing to Jamie and his Shades—the demons visited for the holiday in ever-expanding numbers, gallivanting wildly among the human masses. It had become a regular Dis neyland for demons. They raped, body-jumped, soul sucked . . . generally had their way with the human fools who’d become too inebriated and lost control of their senses.
“I know that someone had to protect the civilians. I just wish I’d been one of those somebodies.”
“Shay, even if it weren’t about your seeing demons or not—”
“Which I do—”
“You’re my only sister, and I have to protect you. I have to do that; don’t you get it? What if something hap pened to you on my watch? I would never get over that. The level of fighting that’s involved . . . it’s hard on us, and we’re men.”
She popped a hand to her head as if just remembering. “That’s right . . . still ‘men only.’ I forgot.”
“It’s dangerous, Shay.”
“You’re sexist, Jamie.”
Jamie shook his head vehemently. “I have Charlotte; she works calls, dispatches, all that stuff. She’s been in demon fights a few times.”
“Great. One woman.” Shay twirled a finger in the air. “You’re a regular Rainbow Coalition in the demon world.”
Jamie opened his mouth to say more, but then his phone rang once again. He cut her a glare and, with a muttered, “Later,” was out the door and answering his fighters.
The Shades always needed her brothers; meanwhile, she needed someone else—something else—and, clos ing the door after her brother, she wondered if that someone hid in the shadows of the encroaching night.
Jax kept to the spiritual shadows across from Shay’s shop, watching her through the glass windows as she closed up. For two days he had tailed her, never releas ing her from his protective guard, always keeping to the dim places that her seer eyes couldn’t penetrate. And for two days he’d waited for Sable to strike again. So far there had been no sign of the Djinn or his minions.
Jax wasn’t fooled, however. No way in Hades would his ancient enemy give up so easily, especially not after being soundly trounced in their last confrontation. The centaur would be out for blood now—both Shay’s and Jax’s. It was only a matter of time until he struck again.
Shay opened the door, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and, casting nervous glances in every direction, quickly locked the shop and began walking briskly down the street. Jax shoved off the wall and followed her on the opposite sidewalk. What he wanted was to go to her, to slip a protective arm about her shoulder and escort her openly wherever it was she was heading. But there were many reasons why such boldness wasn’t going to cut it, not the least of which was that she undoubtedly viewed him as a threat.
Or maybe not, he thought, his heart giving a hopeful leap. Perhaps, if you’re lucky, she views you as her savior. Perhaps she craves you as strongly as you do her.
She had seemed awfully aroused by his wings—and his almost bare body. He’d been with enough women in his endless lifetime to know when one was attracted to him. Oh, yes, he knew he had her in that category, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified of him as well.
Even in mortal form he made human men glance away nervously: his strapping height, his broad chest, his menacing face. In full warrior glory? Wings pounding at the air, body half naked? He moved from threatening to absolutely petrifying, and so far that was about all of him that Shay had seen. She didn’t know about his gentler qualities, and after all, he did possess at least a few.
She held a pair of drumsticks in her hands and tapped them together nervously as she moved down Bull Street, shoulders hunched forward as if she faced a hurricane wind.With quick glances all about her, she never stopped studying her environment while she walked. She arrived at the corner of what Jax now knew was Liberty and Bull, shivered a bit—there was a chill coming off the river tonight—and turned left.
Jax was only a few paces behind, but when he crossed the street, following in her footsteps, what he saw chilled his blood.
A black curtain formed about her, from the front and behind, blocking her from Ajax’s sight. A temporary cir cling, one that couldn’t hold fast around any human, especially not one with Shay’s calling, not for an extended length of time. Yet Sable had still managed to barricade Shay from Jax’s protective watch.
“Shayanna Angel. You didn’t think I’d forgotten you, I hope?”
The centaur blocked her path on the narrow sidewalk; he’d waited until the foot traffic thinned, obviously. He’d caught her alone, unprotected—except for her stupid drumsticks, a new Vic Firth pair. Great for drumming, lousy for beating back ancient demons. She waved them in his face, pretending they were a pair of matching swords—and trying to tell herself that they would serve as true weapons.
“You back off, Sable!” Her mind whirled like a tornado, rushing for any weapon that would truly work on the demon. Nothing came to mind except the paralyzing fears of what this band might do to her in retaliation for the other night in the cemetery. In reprisal for all that her family full of demon hunters had wrought on demonkind over the years.
Sable’s scarred mouth twisted into a bitter smile. Un der the streetlights she could see more details than she had in Bonaventure. The demon’s human portion looked as if he were a severe burn victim, his skin mottled and puckered all over his face, neck, and chest. “Please, Shay anna, call me Elblas. No need for informality among enemies.”
He trotted closer, a smug, hateful expression on his face, yet somehow she had the impression that he might have been attractive at one time. Or at the very least, that he could have been. And as horses went, he was big as a Clydesdale, but with the grace of a powerful stallion, a terrible combination. It also put his human torso far, far above her middling height.
“I mean it, demon.” She extended both drumsticks like rapiers, wishing to God that she’d brought some weapons. “You know what I am, right?”
Months ago she’d secretly “borrowed” a pair of Jamie’s daggers and even a throwing star of Mason’s—some absurdly ninja esque piece out of his armory. But they were at her apartment, where she’d been practicing and teaching herself by watching mail order paramili tary DVDs. None of those items were in her current possession. Why hadn’t she armed herself better today?
“I said,” she repeated when they circled closer, “you do know exactly what I am, right?”
“Huntress,” Sable snarled, drawing the word out distastefully over teeth that seemed to lengthen. Behind him she heard the echoing cackles of other, as yet un seen demons. The horns atop the centaur’s head sud denly uncoiled in reaction, then lengthened into a pair of razor sharp protrusions. Shay shuddered at the thought of being gored to death if he decided to head-butt her.
“Huntress pretty,” a smaller demon snickered.
“Our pretty one. Lovely, lovely.”
She’d heard the same from them the other night, in the cemetery, and their taunts chilled her blood just as cold now. Maybe even more so, because she knew what they were truly capable of doing to her. They might freeze her again, turn her into a cold blooded statue, and this time she might become their prisoner for eternity.
“Huntress,” Sable repeated with another sneer, his lips curling back to reveal long, knifelike teeth. Her gaze was drawn to those razors, and they elongated dra matically as she stared. So did the curling horns atop his head, unfurling from their tight position into sharpened pommels standing high and gleaming. He could skewer her with either one, could stake her straight through the heart.
Maybe she should launch into a praise hymn, use the holy words as a battle sword—but she couldn’t find her voice. A vise coiled about her throat, preventing her from song.
She only barely managed to rasp out a counterthreat. “That’s right,” she hissed back, vocal cords already raw. “I destroy your kind. While you may have caught me off guard the other night, I’m ready for you now.”
Sable trotted right up to her, his thick human chest just above her head. “I take exception to your threat, little huntress.”
Once again the unseen forces behind him laughed uproariously, a dry, cackling sound that made her hair stand on end. “Huntress, huntress,” they chanted gleefully. “Ours to take. Ours to lose.”
Nearly paralyzed with fear, she reminded herself of her spiritual power, kept telling herself that they were liars by nature, not capable of an honest word.
“Liars,” she spat over her tight throat, clutching at her neck in an effort to dislodge the unseen hands that were strangling her and trying to keep her huntress’s words from spilling forth. Her words were her greatest weapon—spiritual words, hymns, incantations. That was what she kept reminding herself of as the tight hold of Satan himself cinched her throat harder.
In a ridiculous gesture of mock strength, she kept the drumsticks extended, praying that Sable and his minions would buy into her masquerade, the idea that she had enough power to kick his ass with nothing but a pair of wooden sticks.
Damn it, Jamie, you should have trained me! If he had, she would have more fighting power and strength now. As it was, she had only the knowledge she’d gleaned from their family lore over the past months. That and her calling as a huntress, which did give her a certain amount of natural strength as she stared up into the centaur-demon’s face.
He inclined his head with mock politeness. “Let me rephrase my answer,” he said, his twisted mouth curl ing into a cruel smile. “Untrained huntress. You have the sight, but not the power.” Sable sidestepped slightly, re vealing his motley horde right behind him. “You must be stopped before you gain more knowledge.”
“You are wrong!” She jabbed at the air between them with the sticks, straining her vocal cords just to shout back a challenge. Her heart was in her throat, too, add ing to the tight sensation, making her nearly breathless. “You have no idea of all that I’ve learned, Sable,” she taunted baldly.
Sable reared up, rising to a spectacular height, and struck the air between them with his hooves. The sheer force of the motion sent her sprawling against the brick wall beside them. As he lunged earthward again, he seized her drumsticks, breaking them into papery wooden shards.
Sable chortled at her attempt to seem ballsy. “Your neck, little human, is next.” With one muscular arm he scooped her into his grasp, hauling her right onto his back.
With a grunt she struggled, kicking at his horse’s side with first one foot, then the other, and Sable jolted in jittery reaction.
“Stop her squirming!” the centaur commanded, and a flying demon landed atop Sable’s hindquarters. The smallish creature reminded her of one of the flying mon keys in The Wizard of Oz, with its cackling screeches and the way it hopped along Sable’s back, pinioning her there.
“I have her, Elblas,” the thing squawked, and Sable began to trot forward, Shay dangling awkwardly across his back. The trot gained speed, became a rolling can ter, and no matter how Shay struggled to dismount, the monkey demon managed to hold her firmly against the center of Sable’s back.
Shay watched the blurring street, struggling for breath, her eyes fixed on Sable’s fast moving hooves. He was gaining speed, the night becoming nothing but a shadow of blackness—not from the lack of daylight, but from the draining absence of goodness that had somehow en circled her. It was like an evil halo all about their moving band, and it held Shay captive within its boundaries.
She gave another kick at Sable’s ribs, and another, digging her nails into his flesh until he reared up in a furious display. Ha, not a smart move, she thought as she rolled off his back and landed on the pavement. She’d grown up riding horses with her cousins, and the emergency dismount came easy for her.
At once she took off sprinting, never looking back. The sound of hellfire itself chasing on her heels definitely gave her extra speed. Her carriage apartment was only two blocks away, if she could just make it there.
A clawlike hand ripped into her back, snagging her by the shirt and lifting her into the air midrun. She cried out, wrestling in Sable’s grasp, kicking and flailing in an attempt to make him drop her.
Bending his mouth close to her neck—hot, smoky breath wafting across her face—he panted for a moment. She could practically taste his hunger for her.
“Huntress,” he murmured, “not quite so fast.”
They’d taken her right to her apartment. The early Friday night traffic on the sidewalks had been brisk, but as they were demons, they were completely unseen. And as she was in their clutches, that meant none of her neighbors whom they passed could see her either. As they entered the courtyard that led to her carriage apartment, they walked right past Lydia, who sat by the fountain, Shay’s own cat, Sunshine, in her lap.
Sunshine hissed, hair on end, the moment the demons neared her.
“Little bitch of a creature,” Sable cursed, and Shay—strapped across his back with snakelike cordons—dug her fingertips into his withers. After all, you didn’t let a demon insult your very own kitty without a fight.
Sable lunged up the steps, taking them several at a time, and as they reached her apartment door Shay won dered if they’d make her unlock it. Like hell she would.
But like all the other shocking moments of the past days, the door apparently meant nothing, and Sable passed right through it, bringing Shay with him. She blinked at the familiar sight of her kitchen and breakfast nook, and when Sable’s demon servants began unstrapping her, she had to bite back an absurd urge to laugh.
All these months she’d been wanting in the game, to really fight the demons that caused murder and pain and mayhem in her home city. She’d gotten her wish, all right—she’d just never imagined they’d be standing in her kitchen beside the cans of cat food, the molding bread, and her stack of bills. The real world colliding with the surreal world, right where she’d made scrambled eggs only three days before.
She slid to the floor as the last of her restraints came loose. Sable planted a hoof atop her belly, not leaning any weight on her, but the threat came through loud and clear.
“Now you talk, Shayanna.” He bent his torso low, meeting her in the eye. “You talk—then you die.”
She blinked up at him, confused. “Talk about what?” she snapped.
Sable began stroking each of his horns, and applied just a hint of weight to that hoof on her belly, enough that she had to yelp in slight pain. “Think, Shayanna. What would I want to know about?”
She leaned back against the floor, trying to find her breath or even to get her racing heart to settle down. It wasn’t hard to figure out what the demon wanted—information about her angelic protector. As if she had any!
“I don’t know anything about him,” she announced flatly.
Sable lifted his threatening hoof and circled her slightly. “Ah, but you know and understand where my interest lies, don’t you?”
She rolled onto her side, sitting up. “I just told you, pal: I don’t know anything about him other than what happened the other night.”
“Yet he saved you, how convenient.” Sable reached a clawed hand to her face, and although she jerked side ways, he still managed to tangle his hand through her hair, giving it a painful jerk.
She managed to pull her hair free. “I thought . . . I don’t know . . . that he was an angel.” Drawing on a hid den source of bravado, Shay bolted to her feet. “Coffee, guys? What sorts of beverages do demons favor?” She moved toward the fridge, falsely peppy and bright. “I have wine, milk past the expiration date, vitamin water. Whatever you want.”
Sable eyed her as if she were insane.
She sidestepped a millimeter at a time, edging her way toward the spot.
“What about your friends? They want something?” she offered, sliding a finger into the edge of the drawer in front of her.
“They don’t warrant it.” Sable watched her suspi ciously, his red eyes narrowing. “What are you up to, Shayanna?”
She held up both hands. “Nothing, look. I’m just my mama’s daughter, and no matter who comes into our home, we offer ’em something to drink. Well, and to eat, but my pantry’s bare.”
Sable leaned his elbows onto her bar. “I already know what I plan to devour, thank you.”
She shivered, lifting her right knee and using it to wedge the drawer all the way open. From where Sable stood across the counter, he couldn’t see what she was doing. Slowly lowering her hands, Shay reached for a sponge that sat on the counter and began wiping the surface. “Wow, lots of crumbs. How rude of me,” she singsonged, working the sponge with her right hand as she eased her left hand into the drawer and made contact with one of Mason’s throwing stars.
Bingo.
Just as the DVD had taught her, she tossed the star from her left hand into her right, and before Sable knew what was coming she hurled it across the bar, right at the center of his forehead. He screamed in pain, and she launched herself past the stunned demons and toward the door to her porch. Fumbling with the lock, she managed to fling the door open right as the centaur closed in on her.
On the balcony she turned with her back to the railing and extended the dagger that she’d also grabbed from the drawer. Sable closed in on her, the throwing star jut ting out of his forehead like some kind of sharp handle.
“I’m going to punish you for that act of rebellion,” he thundered.
“Not if I punish you first, you bastard.” She leaned against the railing, striking at the air between them with her dagger in threat.
“I’m going to take that dagger from your hand and gut you like a pig. I’ll hear you squeal and screech like one, too, before I’m done . . . or maybe that’s screech like a dying hawk, perhaps? Either way, I’m taking your blood tonight.”
“No, Elblas, you are wrong about that one,” a deep, wonderfully familiar voice said. Shay let out a tight breath as her hawk protector swooped onto the porch and inserted himself between her and the centaur. “I’m not letting you touch Shay, not ever again.”
The protector demon spoke to her over his shoulder. “You stay right behind me, Shayanna.” Briefly he ex tended his right hand behind his back in a reassuring gesture, easing her away from the railing and against the brick wall of the carriage house. Holding her in his protection, her protector reassured her. “I’ve got this one.”
She gave him room to fight, planting her back against the brick wall so that no other demons could take her from the rear. Studying the courtyard below and the street beyond it, she watched for demonic reinforcements—and marveled that none of the normal humans driving along could see a thing about what was really going on. One man walking by glanced up at her curiously, probably since she was backed up against the wall, hands splayed beside her, looking as though some nightmarish beast were about to eat her alive. Which was exactly what was going down—the man just couldn’t see the rest of the picture. Finally he looked away, shaking his head in confusion.
The demon taunted her protector, and at one point she thought he said something like, “I followed her here to punish you.”
She wondered what that meant, but didn’t have time to analyze it as the two beings launched themselves at each other.
Beneath the courtyard lights—and not in statue form this time—she was able to really watch her protector fight. She was amazed at the pure grace he displayed as he battled. He moved with the lightness of a dancer, yet assaulted with those same feet as if he held a black belt in karate. Sable actually retreated a few steps along the porch under the sheer force of the attack.
Yet the most amazing thing about her guardian’s fighting skills was that he never used a sword, didn’t summon his wings; the entire assault was carried out using only his hands and feet. Oh, and his head—he butted Sable hard in the chest, driving him backward again. The other demons began to make their move then, no longer holding back in deference to their master.
That was when Jax took hold of her in a fast forward silver motion. One moment he was wearing black com bat boots and fatigues, reaching for her elbow—the next his wings were erupting from behind his back as he swept her into his arms with a running leap off the balcony’s railing.
Just like that she was lifting heavenward in his grasp all over again. And just like that, she flung her arms about his neck and clutched him closer, tears of gratitude filling her eyes.
“You came back,” she murmured, pressing her face against his shoulders.
“I never left, sweet one,” he replied, shushing her.
The wind tunneled about them, whipping her hair against her cheek. No wonder he had his own long hair drawn into a ponytail. Maybe she should start planning ahead, she thought with a ridiculous, girlish giggle. You just never knew when a winged demon-angel was going to kidnap you from downtown.
Although he hadn’t soared very high—barely above the rooftops—his wings were pounding at the air much harder than before. She looked up into his face and saw a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, and she wondered if flight was much harder on him, carrying her like this.
“There,” he said, swooping downward, “there’s our spot. Hold tight to me, Shay; I don’t want to hurt you when we land. I’m aiming for both feet this time.”
She burrowed against his chest, shutting her eyes. “Thank you.”
When he hit pavement he absorbed the impact by running, just like an airplane touching down and then braking hard. He finally came to a resting stop and searched the surroundings. “This is farther down Bay Street,” she observed.
“Right where I intended,” he told her in a serious tone. He took hold of her elbow. “Come on! We have to move fast; they’re not far behind us.”
Shay held her ground, unmoving. As relieved as she was by his protection—and at his having found her again—her emotions were in turmoil. She couldn’t be sure whether she should truly trust him, much as she already wanted to—or fear for her very life.
“I need to know who you are,” she insisted, “what you are, before I go with you.”
He gave her a disbelieving look. “No time right now,” he finally said, tugging on her arm again. “I’ll explain when we get underground, where you’ll be safe from them.”
His ebony wings gleamed beneath the streetlight, and for the first time she could truly see how fierce his face was, beautiful and horrifying all at the same time, with its sharp planes, the long nose. “I don’t know if I can trust you,” she admitted softly. “I keep thinking that I can, but I can’t figure out what sort of demon would protect me.”
“The kind who doesn’t care if you like this.” With a cry in an unknown language, he transformed into a new set of street clothes, wings gone. Then he literally picked her up by the waist, held her aloft, and sprinted down the sidewalk. Like a dancer he sidestepped as he ran, dodging tourists and pedestrians, who, she was beginning to figure out, had no idea the two of them currently moved in their midst.
“Why can’t these people see me?” she cried as Jax nearly tripped on a baby stroller, but managed to swerve past at the last minute.
“You’re under my protection, so you’re not visible to the mortal world at the moment.”
She squirmed in his grasp. “Put me down,” she argued. “I’m not a flipping sack of potatoes!”
“No,” he said, barely winded as he ran. “What you are is noncompliant, quite a dangerous problem at the moment. So I’m taking control.”
For some reason she thought of Linda Hamilton’s character in Terminator 2, the way she’d skidded and clawed to get away from Arnie—until the moment she realized he only appeared to be the bad machine. He was still a machine, and he looked like a Terminator, but he had a different mission. He was there to save them all. Maybe her fallen angel was the same sort of thing; maybe he truly was what she’d been thinking ever since their first meeting, what he’d said from the very begin ning: her protector. He had saved her not once but twice now, after all.
Resolved, she shouted, “I’ll go with you. Just put me down!”
He stopped abruptly, depositing her on both feet. “Come on.” He grunted, giving her arm a firm yank. “We’ve been exposed too long already.” He moved pur posefully, his gaze sweeping the landscape, his footsteps slowing sometimes, speeding at others. But he never let her away from his side, clasping her arm or her elbow with the death grip of the Terminator himself.
He watched the ground, studied the sky, sniffed at the air. Then he did the darnedest thing—beelined right into the middle of Bay Street, ignoring the oncoming traffic.
“Watch out!” she yelled as a car missed them by a hairline fracture’s width. The car didn’t swerve, and she remembered that, of course, they were invisible to the passing drivers. It was just that seeing him wander right into danger like that had really scared her. And what would have happened if he had been hit? She hated how much the thought unsettled her.
“First, they didn’t hit me. Second, as I said, you’re under my protection right now, so they don’t even know we’re here,” he told her dismissively, and dropped to his knees. “Only someone with your special sight would be able to see us here right now.”
“So you’ve got like, what? A supernatural umbrella around me? Or, like, a bubble type deal?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
With a bizarre conjuring of burning fire, he created a pothole in the street. He tested it by sliding into it. Then, climbing back out, he widened it a bit more and tested it again. Seemingly satisfied, he hoisted himself back out of the hole, and just narrowly missed being plowed down by a Range Rover in the process.
“Now we can go in together,” he explained, crouching beside her. With a pat of his shoulders, he said, “Climb onto my back.”
She gave her head a little shake. “You . . . go . . . first. Yeah, you go.”
He stared at her incredulously, then jerked her out of a dusty Volvo’s path, up against his side. “I understand that I’m confusing you with all this.”
“ ‘All this’ isn’t confusing me. You’re confusing me. You.” She waved her hand up and down his shirtfront in explanation. “Now a black T-shirt; before a breastplate; before that, bare skin and wings,” she singsonged, aware that she sounded a little hysterical. “Yeah, sorry, dude, but whatever you are is confusing the hell out of me. Whoops, bad choice of words.”
“I saved you before. Ergo you can obviously trust me. So let me give you a status check. As I see it right now”—he paused, sniffing the air—“and smell it, for that mat ter, Sable and crew will be on you in less than five. Plus, there’s a hot little Benz starting down the street, moving, oh, about eighteen over the speed limit. You either bolt to the sidewalk or come with me now.”
He stopped, giving her a significant look suggesting what exactly alone might mean if the demons found her and she wasn’t under his protection. “Or we both get rolling and you let me do my job. But I can’t keep this pothole open for long, not if we don’t want to cause a car accident that endangers the lives of innocent people.”
“Job? Someone pays you for this?” She jabbed him in the chest with her forefinger. The muscle was so hard that she actually had to shake her hand in pain.
He sighed, glancing down the street. “I’m your guardian, Shay,” he said, “like we discussed before.”
She suddenly forgot their quarrel and remembered the Benz—which was closing in on them. We’re invisible, so maybe it won’t hurt so much, she rationalized mentally. Or maybe we’re only invisible and that Benz could crush me like a mosquito.
“But you wouldn’t want to find out for sure,” he warned, knowing her thoughts without missing a beat. With another pat of his shoulder, he bent low enough that she could climb onto his back.
She didn’t budge. “I don’t want you getting in my head like that.”
“Then perhaps you should think less loudly.”
She slapped him on the arm. “Wait! That’s how you knew my name. You plucked it right out of my own head the other night, just like that Sable freak knew my thoughts.”
He gave her a shockingly gentle smile. “Come on, Shay,” he urged. “We’re almost out of time.”
With a sigh of surrender she slipped both arms about his neck. “Just gotta know one thing,” she said as he slid powerful forearms under her legs. “Are you a Terminator fan?”
“Not the third one,” he said. With a catlike movement he slid down into the hole, swinging from the opening. “The others, yes. Why?”
“Tell me you’re here to fight the T 1000s.” She clung hard to his neck. “Just promise me that.”
His answer was to drop with her like a heavy stone into the utter blackness below—fathomless darkness. Maybe even into the depths of the underworld itself.
Jamie stood with Candy beside him. She’d clearly been confused when he’d taken off running down the street a moment earlier. She had no idea, of course, that he’d just seen his sister in the middle of a supernatural crisis, but she’d kept up behind him, sort of, high heels clacking on cement.
His emergency call from the Shades had turned out to be a false alarm—the real issue, he now knew, was his lit tle sister. In disbelief he watched as she disappeared below Bay Street clinging to that demon—or angel—from the other night. Jamie had been too far away to glimpse much. But he’d seen enough, transfixed as he’d watched the winged creature fly earthward with Shay cradled in his arms, then land right on the sidewalk.
Jamie had been too late reaching them, however. By the time he’d caught up with them, she’d been sliding below Bay Street with that thing.
“Wait here,” he told Candy, who, of course, hadn’t witnessed any of the supernatural action. “I need to go check something out.”
He started to walk into the street, but Friday night traffic was nonstop, and the light was green. That hole could lead anywhere, he thought. You have to get to it before it seals.
Tapping his foot, he kept waiting for a break in the traffic, and hit speed dial on his BlackBerry. It was time to gather the Shades in earnest now.
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