The Company of Shadows

Chapter Twenty-One

  “Crazy,” she repeated. “Well, in that case, if you’re about to blow my mind, we might as well get comfortable. Let’s go sit on the couch. Unless what you’re about to tell me involves any more bloodshed?”

  “Hopefully not,” he deadpanned, and it took her a moment to realize he was kidding. Instead of heading straight for the couch, she went to the fridge and got herself a diet soda, holding up a can of regular soda to him.

  “I’ll just have some water, thanks.”

  Drinks in hand and comfortably ensconced on the sofa, Cady tucked her foot under her knee and turned to face him expectantly. “Okay, go ahead, get as crazy as you want. I’m ready.”

  Ethan drained half of his water, frowning into the glass. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Well… how about you start with why you keep stabbing yourself in the hand and go from there.”

  “Just, jump right in, huh?”

  “That’s the general idea, yes.” She waited patiently as he drank the rest of the water, his words tumbling out fast when he was done, as if he had to get them all out at once.

  “Stabbing myself in the hand with the dague is part of the binding ritual.”

  “The binding ritual?” she repeated, remembering the foreign chanting. “Is that some kind of witchcraft? To bind him from doing harm?” In the movies they always used a picture of the person to do something like that. She’d never heard of having to stab both the intended person and yourself in the hand before. Not that she knew much about the stuff.

  “No, it’s not witchcraft, or I guess you could think of it that way.” His forehead puckered as he puzzled through it. “It’s more than binding him from doing harm, it’s binding the subject to me. That’s what I do. I hunt down those who are possessed and I bind the evil to me.”

  “Why would you want to do that? Then you’d be walking around with an angry spirit inside you.”

  “It’s not walking around, it’s bound to me. And it’s not an angry spirit like a ghost, these are demons. They’re summoned here from another plane, often killing whoever was stupid enough to call upon them and escaping into our world. I pull the demon out of the host body and draw him into me instead, then it’s neutralized. I can harness the demon’s power and strength, but I’m in control.”

  He was right, it did sound crazy. “So, you’re saying the guy who attacked me, Claudio, he was a demon, not a member of a crazy cult.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And this other guy, the one from the Laundromat…”

  “Same demon, different body.”

  “Demons,” she repeated, still trying to wrap her head around it. A couple of weeks ago she would have laughed at him. “And would he really have killed me then, or was that bullshit too?”

  “No, he would’ve most likely tortured and killed you. It’s part of his profile.”

  “You say that like you’ve got a file on him.”

  “I do,” he admitted readily. “Subject Q, known for his brutality, a penchant for corruption of innocence, and the occasional…” His voice dropped off, but Cady had to know.

  “Occasional what?”

  Ethan pressed his lips together, weighing his words carefully. “He sometimes likes a taste of his victims.”

  Ick. She pushed that visual from her mind, not wanting to think too closely about how she or Penny might have ended up if circumstances had ended differently. “Subject Q? That’s a funny name for a demon.”

  “We try not to use their true names whenever possible, it gives them too much power.”

  “Right,” she replied tonelessly. He seemed so earnest, it was hard not to believe him, but was it possible Ethan was just crazy himself? Sure, she’d been attacked in a parking lot, and sure, the guy had acted strangely, even going so far as to slit his own throat to keep Ethan from completing his ritual. But did anything really support his notion that it was a demon rather than a man?

  “What kind of powers do these demons have?”

  “They’re faster and stronger than humans, and they have the ability to absorb a lot more damage than a regular person can without going down.”

  “Sort of like a druggie on PCP?”

  “Sort of,” he allowed. “But unlike an addict, the demon heals much, much faster.”

  “Faster than you even?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. They also have the ability to seduce men or women with a single glance. Something I think you’re, ah, familiar with.”

  “A pretty powerful ability if you ask me.” She’d never felt anything like it before. One second she’d been hell bent on getting Penny away from the scumbag, and the next she was ready to tear his clothes off with her teeth. “How do you stop them then? It seems like it’d be hard to bring them down without killing the host body.”

  “That’s why I try not to use a gun. I didn’t have much choice tonight though, he might have finished me off if I hadn’t shot him.”

  “What about holy water, crosses, that kind of thing?”

  Ethan was quick to shake his head. “It might have an effect on a minor imp, but Q’s a tough one, he’s been around for a long time. Usually they’re not able to move at all once I get them with the rusty dagger.”

  The pieces were starting to fall into place. “So that’s why you carry that dirty old thing,” she nodded. “Still, it seems like you’re getting the short end of the stick here. No enchanted crossbows or holy hand grenades?”

  “No, I must have missed them on orientation day,” Ethan chuckled. “It’s rough sometimes, but I’ve managed to come out on top so far. This one’s just giving me a run for my money.”

  “I’ll say,” Cady murmured, her gaze falling to his bandaged shoulder. “What does that make you? You’re faster and stronger than a regular guy, you heal super fast. You said something before about visions.”

  “You remembered that, did you?”

  “Some things stick with a girl,” she shrugged.

  “I’m still human,” he insisted earnestly. “I just get a few perks from binding the demons to me.”

  “I’m a little fuzzy on how you do that.”

  “Not everyone can do what I do, not even everyone who’s recruited to work for the Company. Almost anyone can survive the ritual to have a demon bound to them. It’s a long, complex ritual done by very skilled elders. It gives them added speed and strength, healing and some psychic abilities vary depending on the demon. But a few of us, we have the ability to trap the demons built into us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Ethan leaned forward, raising his tattooed hand. “I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible. We’re imbued with special tattoos that let us pull the demon out of a host and bind it to us with a fairly simple ritual, the one you saw part of with the knife through our hands.”

  “And you always have to stab your own hand a well as theirs?”

  “Yes, that’s part of it.” He twisted to show her the tattoos down the center of his back. “The most complicated parts of the ritual are already built into me, waiting for me to trigger them, so to speak. All I have to do is immobilize him long enough to get the dague into both our hands and complete the ritual’s final steps.”

  “And then the demon goes inside of you.”

  “Yes, safely bound.”

  That didn’t sound so safe to her, but he seemed perfectly fine with it. “And then it’s Miller time until you get your next demon assignment?”

  “Something like that. There are watchers out there, studying the signs, looking for demons living among us. Sometimes it’s months before I’m called into action, sometimes it’s just a few weeks.”

  “Who do you work for? Some kind of religious outfit, like the Vatican?”

  “No, I work for the Company. It’s a secular organization who deals in the supernatural.”

  “What company?”

  “That’s all it is –
the Company.”

  Cady leaned forward to lay her hand on his arm. “You can tell me their name, I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I’m serious. That’s all they go by, the Company. Why would I keep a small detail like that from you at this point? I’ve already blown way past the rules in even saying the word demon to you. If they were to find out…”

  “It’s cool, Ethan, I won’t mention the D-word to anyone else, I promise.” Who would believe any of it? She wasn’t entirely sure she bought it all yet either. Binding demons. Nobody covered that as an option on career day back in high school. A disturbing thought occurred to her. “So, you do this for a living. That means you have other demons inside you right now?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How many?”

  “Five.”

  “You have five demons inside you right now?” Cady choked on the words, nearly spilling her diet soda before she set it down.

  “That’s not so many,” he shrugged, unconcerned. “I’ve had as many as eight in me at once before.”

  Eight! He said it so casually, like they were talking about eating hardboiled eggs or something. “What happens to them? Does the Company exorcise them from you in another ritual?”

  “Not exactly. They’re… off loaded, I guess you could say.”

  “Onto what?” Cady pictured a contraption like the grid that held ghosts in the movie Ghostbusters.

  “The elders can bind them to another person.”

  “Why would they want to do that?”

  “Because it imbues certain gifts, like I said. Strength, speed… characteristics that are advantageous for Company men.”

  “They pull the demons out of you and load them up onto some other person… so they can what? Fight other demons?”

  “Among other things. The Company deals with many supernatural creatures. Operatives that have been marked this way are extremely useful in identifying and bringing down some of the simpler forms.”

  “But not you… you’re special.”

  “I survived the branding ritual, so I guess that makes me special. But I had nothing to do with it,” he shrugged.

  “The branding ritual, that sounds painful.” Her fingers went to the tattoo on his arm. “People don’t normally see them, do they?”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “How come I can?”

  Ethan let out a long breath. “As near as I can figure, it’s because you were contaminated with demon’s blood the other night when the subject grabbed you.”

  “Contaminated?” That didn’t sound good, not one bit. Would she get sick now? Was she especially susceptible to evil? “What does that mean? Is that why I’ve turned into a demon magnet?” It was a bit of a leap, but a logical one, she thought.

  “That could explain Q’s fixation with you,” Ethan replied, brows drawing together as he puzzled his way through it. “That actually makes a lot of sense. Why else has he abandoned his usual entertainments to stalk you?”

  “I don’t know about stalking me. It was that one time in the Laundromat and then tonight.”

  “What about your dreams, has he been coming to you there? Your mirror’s been uncovered until tonight, right? He could have tried contacting you there as well.”

  “My mirror?” Cady failed to see what one had to do with the other, but then it hit her – the dream lover. “Oh God…” The same man haunting her dreams night after night, stalking her. He seemed so otherworldly at times, that had to be it. Ash had to be subject Q. And she’d let him kiss her, touch her intimately. A wave of revulsion spread through her. “I think I’m going to be sick.” Closing her eyes, she took shallow breaths until the sensation passed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he could get into my dreams through my mirror?” she demanded, whipping a throw pillow at him, and Ethan’s hands came up in a supplicating gesture.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t think to mention it. At first I had no idea he’d become so drawn to you, it’s highly unusual. Generally demons are unable to control the basic instinct to kill. After he failed to kill you that first night, he should have simply moved on.”

  “But he didn’t, he set up shop inside my frigging head,” she muttered, another wave of crawliness sweeping over her. “Why would he do that?”

  “It’s possible there’s a connection between you now that you’ve been exposed to his blood,” Ethan shrugged. “Or it’s possible he was simply struck by your beauty and formed an instant attachment to you.”

  “Love at first sight?” she snorted, wondering if Ethan mentioned that because he thought she was beautiful too.

  “No, more likely lust than love. Demons don’t feel love, not the way humans do.”

  It hadn’t felt like lust, not beyond the first night when he’d tried to seduce her in the silken boudoir and again under the tree in the park. But who knew what his ultimate agenda was? Maybe he got some sort of sick pleasure in getting her to fall for him before he devoured her?

  “And what about you?” Her head canted to one side as she studied him closely. “Can you still feel love, or does having all of that darkness bound to you keep you from falling?”

  “I… I thought it did,” he answered, sounding a little bewildered. “I don’t.”

  “You don’t, or you’re not supposed to?”

  “I avoid relationships. It keeps things simpler. I can’t let myself be distracted, what I do is too important.”

  “Is that what I am to you, a distraction?” At least that explained his reluctance to let her in.

  “You’re…” Ethan’s breath whistled between his teeth as he let it out. “I honestly don’t know. I shouldn’t… I don’t usually…”

  Cady took pity on the poor guy, talking about his emotions clearly wasn’t something he did with any regularity. “I thought you said not to trust people who use the word honestly,” she teased, gratified to see his lips quirk into a half smile.

  “Since when do you listen to anything I tell you to do?”

  “I listen plenty, just not when you say stupid stuff,” she said matter of factly. “So… let me see if I can sum this all up. You’re a demon hunter, and I have a lovesick demon stalking me in my dreams because there’s some kind of a blood bond between us.”

  “Lust-sick.”

  “Right,” she muttered. “But if I keep my mirror covered I should be good, right? He can’t get to me?”

  “You should be safe both inside your dreams and out. I marked your window with protective symbols earlier, that’s why he couldn’t get to you tonight.”

  “You did? Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Ethan gave a lopsided smile, and Cady realized she didn’t care if he was crazy. She was already halfway to lovesick herself.

  He still wasn’t the dreamy boy with bedroom eyes and sculpted cheekbones that the CW tried to convince every girl (and some guys) over the age of thirteen made the perfect man, but somehow that made him better. Sometimes the beauty is in the flaws – that’s what she’d told her dream lover, and it held true. How much of what appealed to her about Ethan had made it into her version of the perfect man? Maybe that was why she’d found Ash so tempting in her dreams?

  “You should smile more often,” she observed aloud, eliciting a self conscious smile from him in return.

  “I already feel like I’ve smiled more in the past week than I have in the past year.”

  “Well… we’ll have to see what we can do about that.” Leaning towards him, she bussed his lips lightly, giving him plenty of time to pull away in case he decided he shouldn’t let himself be distracted by her again. But just as before, the moment her lips touched his, Ethan made no move to push her away. Instead, he pulled her closer, his body making it clear that he didn’t mind the distraction after all.

  Cady distracted him for a good, long time, seizing the opportunity while she could. With a demon out
there trying to kill him and seduce her, who knew when they would get the chance to again? For the moment, it felt like they had all the time of the world.

  For a man who claimed not to do well with intimacy, his hands hit all the right spots. The sensitive strip of skin at the small of her back, the tender spot behind her ear, the light brush of a thumb on the underside of her breast; they all brought her to a simmering boil. At some point he’d slipped out of the makeshift sling and she didn’t have the presence of mind to object.

  Ethan made her forget all her good intentions, the need to wait, to want to make sure… like anyone could be sure of anything when it came to love. If he’d asked her to bed, hell, if he’d steered her in the direction of her bedroom, Cady might have given herself to him. Instead, the kisses grew softer, more tender and lingering as he reached a line he wouldn’t cross. She didn’t mind, not when he still held her close.

  “You know what I want to do right now?” she asked, holding back the urge to laugh as she felt him stiffen in her embrace.

  “I… we shouldn’t…”

  Cady pulled back to see him staring at the floor, red faced. “You know, I was going to say I could go for a big bowl of ice cream right about now, but I think I’m much more interested in hearing what you think I meant.”

  “Oh, ice cream.” It was like watching the air deflate out of a balloon. Ethan lost the stiff posture, his color returning to normal as he realized he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Sure, I could eat some ice cream.”

  “Unless there’s something else you’d rather be doing right now?” Cady smiled archly, her hand sliding up his leg in a teasing come on.

  “No, thank you.” Laying his hand atop hers, he stopped the advance. “I think I could use something to cool off a bit.”

  “Alright,” Cady agreed equably, backing off and beckoning him to follow her into the kitchen. “Ice cream surprise coming right up.”

  “What’s the surprise?”

  “You’ll have to wait and see.” So far kissing him into submission seemed to be working out just fine whenever he started to say stupid stuff. Not so bad compared to some of her botched relationships in the past. It was hard to say where things stood between them, but there were worse things than having to kiss a guy to get what she wanted, especially when that something was him.