RedFire
Chapter 6
Jax balanced on the large tree branch and unfurled his wings, tearing through leaves and Spanish moss. Sable and his pack of Djinn demons were already well acquainted with his power, but he was outmatched—and a human life hung in the balance. Intimidation was the order of the day.
A demonic cry sounded from the distant reaches of the cemetery, momentarily distracting Sable and buy ing Jax extra time. The demon lifted his head from the human’s breast, and then trotted a few feet away. Thank God. Jax exhaled, and watched to be sure none of the other demons closed in about her. They probably didn’t dare, not with a demon of Sable’s stature in the barn-yard, so to speak.
Jax could see little of the female below except her pale arms, which extended upward toward the moon in a pleading gesture. Her face was lifted toward the sky, too, as if she’d been praying before the demons had paralyzed her.
Lovely lass, are you still praying? Do you see me here, come to watch over you?
And what a lovely lass she truly was, he thought, al lowing himself a stolen moment of appreciation. Lush, dark hair fell down her back, a lock of it concealing her cheek. His hands tensed with the sudden desire to stroke that silken hair beneath his fingertips. To press his face against it and inhale her sweet mortal scent. Her pale-skinned neck lay exposed, vulnerable, and Jax ached to know what she would taste like, feel like within his arms. Gods, he wanted to caress her, just like the moonlight spilling down from above caressed her. He even ached to swoop upon her and make her his very own, to make her his Leda, with him as mighty Zeus.
A flood of emotion filled his heart, tightening his chest . . . and tightening his body. He could smell the sweetness of her skin, the very sweetness Sable sought to rob from her—her mortality. Brevity, that brief sun-burst of human life . . . well, the horde would stay drunk off that for days should they win tonight. No wonder the demons lusted so for a taste of her. Even Jax found her scent of mortality more alluring than any he’d ever known. If he tasted of her, surely he would be drunk for days, as well. But at least she would still be alive. . . .
His wings began to strike at the air in near-frantic re action, as if urging him onward in the insane plan. Silver filled his eyes, coloring the landscape and even the air all around him. Pure, unadulterated silver. He blinked, try ing to rein in his reaction to the little mortal, but the silver swam all through his body. With a quick downward glance he saw it was even pulsing through the veins of his hands. She had intoxicated him. She had incited this overwhelm ing dose of his own flowing source, the raw lifefulness that Ares had served him on that long-ago day.
Together, he and his Spartan brothers had sipped from the fire drawn right from the River Styx, and its effect on each warrior had been unique; for Jax, the fire had turned silver once inside his body. That, and it had en larged and strengthened every portion of his anatomy, as first liquid gold shot through his veins, then a brilliant bronze—and finally supernatural silver. Jax had stud ied the pulsing liquid in marvelous horror, watching it snake through his arms and chest, feeling it scorch him from the inside out.
“What is this? What is happening to me?” he’d won dered aloud, flexing first one bulky forearm, then the other. The rushing silver soared through his veins, and Jax felt intoxicated and horrified, watching his body transform into something almost . . . unrecognizable in its magnitude.
Ares had just laughed, tossing his head back for a long moment before continuing. “My splendid Spartan, that’s simply the raging fire of Styx joined together with your mortal flesh.”
“Inside my . . . body?” Jax had barely gasped, feeling the tightening of muscle and bone in his chest and shoulders.
Ares had planted a long, lean arm across his shoulder, drawing him near like a comrade. “I’ve forged you in the rivers of eternity, young one. You are my own creation. Perhaps my very best. Of that, we shall see.”
Jax’s heart had thudded in panic, but he refused to let it show.
“And I, for one, will admit that I rather like the look of my creation.” Ares had then raked his gaze down the length of Jax’s transforming body, his eyes gleaming wickedly in appreciation. Especially when the flowing liq uid infused Jax’s groin and powerful upper thighs—bringing with it supernatural strengthening and enlargement.
“Of course,” the god cautioned, “some have gone in sane after drinking from this very river. Styx has a way of . . . well, I’ll just say defying control. Like you, young Ajax. Just like you.”
That was how it had been ever since, with Ajax teeter ing precariously on the edge, with the fire always cours ing, threatening to erupt like hot lava from Vesuvius. Oh, control of the source had not come easily for him, and he’d worked hard to master the mystery inside his own body. But he had done it. Eventually.
Until now, that was; until she, the waif of a mortal below him, had drawn out his silver, just by . . .
Oh, gods, she’d aroused the hell out of him.
But there was a battle raging, he thought, shaking off the tidal wave of sensations racking his body. He would take the extra dose of power and use it. Perhaps Ares had allowed it on purpose.
Master it, you bastard, he told himself. Her life is at stake. There is time to consider her effect on you later—if you fight well and fast. Shake off the past!
Get hold of yourself, you fool. She’s one of your own, in the palm of your hand. That was the vow they’d reaffirmed to Ares every August for more than two thousand years, ever since the day of their initial transformation.
Trusted to us, in the palm of our hands. Mortalkind, our children—demonkind, their devourers . . .
The words droned in Jax’s head, both in ancient Greek and in English. Hell, for kicks Ares had made them pledge in dozens of languages over the years, and Ajax could still recite them all. As he did so now, his mind and spirit settled; all at once he was a warrior again, not confused by ancient sensations and churning powers.
“She is mine, in the palm of my hand,” Jax warned in a chilling voice. “Watch yourself, demons. You have no right to touch so much as a single hair on this one’s head.”
“Touch!” The horde cackled in unison, laughing as if he’d just told the most uproarious joke. “Stroke the lovely, lovely.”
“Ah, bollocks.” Jax shook his head; why were most demons always so inane? The least they could do was grow a decent sense of humor or manufacture some cleverness. “Stop watching Lord of the Rings, why don’t you?”
“We serve only one master!” a somewhat deeper voice howled. “Elblas!”
“Too bad you’ve no better taste in masters,” he mut tered under his breath, but then a few wolfish demons trotted closer to the human. They snarled and circled, baring long fangs. And still she stood, unmoving, but he hoped quite alive.
I have to distract them, lead them away from her, and before time runs out. Already her skin was losing all of its color; her whole being was literally draining of any sort of pigment or softness. Even her denim jeans were fading to a chalky marble color. Of course the spell was binding her rapidly—Sable possessed that degree of power. But Jax was here to stop him; this time the demon lord would not win the battle for a human soul.
Jax launched into a long, graceful dive, rushing to the mortal woman. He spread his wings wide and screeched into the night. It was the war cry of the immortals and had long ago replaced their Spartan battle hymns. Again he screamed, releasing his piercing hawk’s warning, and sent the minor demons below scattering, trailed by nothing but their own gasps and titters of embarrassment.
Sable spotted him right as he reached the female. The demon cut sideways and thundered back across the cemetery, riding wild. He stormed forward like a knight on horseback ready to joust with Jax, and then veered at the last moment, heading right toward the human. Jax blocked him, putting his own body between her and the demon. He fanned his wings tall and wide, shielding her behind him.
“Don’t even think about harming her, you hybrid bastard!”
Sable sped faster, nearly to the mortal. How dare that impudent little punk of a Djinn toy with her, tickling his own fancy by capturing her like a butterfly in his wicked net?
Well, Jax would show his enemy a thing or two about what his own wings could do. He spread them wider, to their very fullest extension, screeching into the night. A few more demons scattered into the darkness, cackling and whispering Sable’s pure demon name—“Elblas! Elblas!”—in some sort of perverse worship chant. So the bastard had a following. Jax had the very power of the gods flowing through his own veins—and it was time to unleash that fury on his enemy.
Shay’s mind screamed, but her mouth was unmoving, her body deathly cold—and it seemed that even the demon couldn’t hear her anymore. Several times that strange hunter—surely he was a hunter? one of her brothers’ crew?—had moved past where she stood. But all she’d seen was a flash of weaponry, a mammoth, hulking shape; then the hoofed demon had moved past her vision. The one that the hunter called Elblas. Or Sable. Which one? The fighter had used both. And even though she tried to tell herself that the hunter was part of her brothers’ fighting unit, she could feel that he was something much stronger. More supernatural and also threatening . . .yet light in intention, not murderous and dark.
She worked at her mouth, but it was totally pointless. I might as well have been buried alive. Her body had been converted to a prison, to a strait-jacket.
Help me! Someone! God . . . angels!
Maybe that monumental fighter was an angel! Why hadn’t that hit her before? Uh, probably because my thoughts are being frozen solid, too. Then she’d better make her very last thought, the one before this horrible transformation became complete, a strong one.
That demon heard me earlier, she remembered, aware of a massive shape just in front of her, the soft breeze of some sort of movement. It was almost as if someone were slowly fanning her—or maybe she was hallucinating. Still, she was pretty sure that whatever that dark form was, it was her angel man.
If Elblas could hear me, maybe this other creature can.
Help me! she screamed as loud as she could within her mind. You! In front of me! Set me free!
Only silence answered; in fact, she realized that she no longer heard any sound at all.
Their spell was nearly complete.
Jax swooped at Sable, talons bared, wanting to lead the battle away from the woman. In reaction the Djinn reared up, brandishing a pair of glinting swords that he’d produced from the cosmos. A high-level summoner, Sa ble had once been adept at conjuring the most lethal of weapons and apparently still was. Rubies glowed along the hilt of the sword in his right hand; emeralds shone from that in his left. For a shield Sable used his front legs, kicking at the air between them so violently that Jax had to retreat a few steps.
Sable laughed, lunging toward him, both swords slicing viciously through the air, but Jax was able to feint and rolled out of the way, absorbing his wings in a fluid movement. Sable bounded at him, slashing with both swords, the emerald one driving hard into the ground—barely missing Jax’s shoulder.
Jax raised his own shield, averting the heavy blow of the demon’s second sword. He kept the defense in place, buttressing it with his supernatural energy until it gleamed silver with his immortal life force. None of the demons would be able to penetrate the small fortress for a full minute; after that, he would need a new plan. Something to get him out of this defensive position and into an offensive one.
Closing his eyes, he gazed inward, focusing on the weapons he would choose. He laid hold of his eight-foot spear, made sure his armor was fully in place, from his greaves to his breastplate. River. He released the name inside the swirling silver of his soul, watched it with his sight as the single word slipped into the flowing stream, transported by the thread that connected him with the warrior who had once been his servant in the mortal realm—and who now remained so throughout eternity.
River could pick off the rest of the pack one by one, allowing Jax to face off with Sable, who, he hated to ad mit, had seemingly grown far more powerful during his exile. Or maybe he’d recently been granted new power, just as he’d obviously been given a reprieve from his des ert imprisonment, if nothing else. His hideous centaur curse remained intact; his features were even ghastlier than they were at their last meeting twenty five hundred years ago. It definitely didn’t pay to wind up on Ares’ bad side, not like this Djinn had done. Not that he’d win even an ounce of Jax’s sympathy, not with all that he’d stolen from Jax.
With a prayer, Jax surged to his feet, wings open and hostile, and came out thrashing. Clearly Sable hadn’t expected such a bold move. When Jax slammed him with his left wing, the demon was driven backward, stumbling awkwardly.
“You know what birds of prey do with horses, don’t you, Sable?” Jax taunted, raising his eight footer. It wasn’t just any spear, either—it carried fire drawn right out of the River Styx.
“You’re actually proud to be a vulture?” The centaur found his footing again and hammered at Jax’s raised shield. “Oh, foul lover of carrion! Beat your wings and thump your breast with that pride! Because only the vultures will want what will remain of you . . . once I’m finished.”
Jax ignored the taunts, lunging with his spear, fire hur tling across the distance that separated him from the centaur. Fiery, scalding liquid splashed along Sable’s rump, and he jolted, bucking in wounded agitation.
“Greetings from the River Styx, old friend. You know that you can never kill me, Elblas. Remember how that plan turned out last time? I seem to recall you lost something of value.” Jax lifted into the air with a burst of energy and held himself suspended above Sable, lightly beating his wings to drive his point home. “And as for the vultures, you should want their wings. You call me that because you know you’ll never soar the heavens again!”
Sable’s ruined face twisted into a cruel mask of de spair and hatred, his horns uncurling, then lengthening by at least a foot, his narrow eyes turning beady red. A red haze swirled about his entire body like an oth erworldly dust cloud, covering him from large horsey rump to scarred chest.
The red haze was his demon’s fury. His hatred. His rage. Sable had never been able to contain his manifestations when provoked—ultimately it was what had proven to be his downfall so many years before.
Jax flew a circle overhead, his entire body bulking from the power rush that he’d invited moments earlier when he’d gazed inward. Control over their su pernatural abilities had come hard for the Spartans at first—hardest of all for Jax, who, like Sable, had a raging temper. Just one more reason why the two had always despised each other so much. It was like looking into a mirror that showed you the very worst of yourself, the part that you tried to deny even existed.
The muscles of his shoulders bunched and tightened, his naturally massive thighs thickened, and, as he soared over Sable’s head once again, he called out, “Yes, I seem to remember that you looked a great deal different last time. But who needs wings . . . ?”
Sable reared high, lifting one sword in a full extension of his right arm and pointing it at Jax. “And who needs a wife?” he thundered back.
For half a wingbeat, Jax faltered, making an awkward semidrive for the Djinn who had robbed him of all that had ever truly mattered. Sable knew he’d wounded Jax, too, and in the only way that really counted between immortal enemies—by piercing the heart.
Enraged, Jax launched into a low dive, landing awk wardly on Sable’s long back. “I’ll fucking take your head for that.” He used his wings for balance as Sable attempted to shake him off. “I’ll have your life. . . .”
“And I’ll mend right away. You could never take my wings now, you idiot Greek.”
Sable reared and flipped backward, taking Jax with him, and in a heartbeat Jax had been pinned beneath the crushing weight of a one-thousand pound centaur.
He cried out, his right leg and wing brutally bound be neath the heavy horse body. Sable rolled a bit, pinioning Jax even more solidly. Sable swiveled his torso, trying to get a good look at the damage he’d done, and when he did, his vicious face spread into a triumphant sneer. Jax bit back a cry of pain as the weight crushed into his thigh and wing. The wing would be fine. They were always regenerating, and unassailable because they hadn’t been formed from mortal flesh. His body, however, was vul nerable to a certain extent, although no one and nothing had ever managed to kill one of their immortal band. However, that didn’t mean they couldn’t be hurt, and badly.
“Get up, centaur,” he said, struggling to keep his breathing even. Sable just laughed, reaching for his ruby sword where it lay on the ground. Each of them strug gled and stretched, straining to capture the weapon, but ultimately it remained outside both their grasps.
Jax shoved his shoulder into Sable’s large side, push ing against it as he might a massive boulder. Sable didn’t budge and seemed wholly undaunted. He just stretched out his forelegs, adjusting them comfortably. “I am in no particular hurry,” he said. “In fact, I can sit here for quite a few hours, crushing you slowly, and all the while your little mortal”—Sable’s lips twisted over the word as if it were a rotten olive—“will have turned completely to stone by the time I decide to rouse myself.”
Sable began picking out bits of dirt and rocks from first one hoof, then another. “I wonder what happens to a dead Spartan immortal? ‘Dead immortal’—I rather like the ring of that, don’t you? I mean, it’s quite the paradox.” The demon took a just dislodged rock and hurled it at Jax’s breastplate, and it ricocheted off with a loud clank. “Perhaps I’ll gather my horde and we’ll slowly stone you to death; what say you to that?”
All the while, his centaur’s weight proved more and more crushing, but all Jax could think about was the mortal whose life was draining with each passing mo ment. He must help her now, but he was running out of time.
River, he thought, come to me. I need you . . . she needs you.
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