Ian swore to himself again. For the last two months he’d been trapped in Abaddon, doing Anzo’s dirty work, and he very much wanted to avoid a repeat of the experience.
“Back to this courier that you failed to tell me about. According to my minion, you aren’t too far away. You should be able to find her easily.” Her voice sent little ripples of an unpleasant chill down his back that had nothing to do with the fact that he was wet and naked.
“Is she doing her spell thing on you?” Sasha asked. “Is she compelling you to do evil things right now? Should I hit you over the head and make you unconscious so you won’t give in to her demands that you dance naked for her? Or worse?”
Ian glared even harder, but Sasha was not one to take a glare in the spirit in which it was intended.
“I was informed that the courier will have with her two little spirits. I will naturally want them, too.”
“They aren’t spirits as you know them,” Ian said carefully, the pain in his stomach growing as he felt the conversation spiral out of control. Whatever else happened, he had to put Anzo off the subject of the esprits. “They come from the Court of Divine Blood.”
Anzo made a disgusted sound. “I can’t use a being of light in Abaddon. Leave them behind when you bring me the courier. Her I can use in my plan to overthrow Asmodeus.”
He thought quickly about how to deflect Anzo from the idea of kidnapping an innocent woman. A familiar sense of failure made the pain in his gut spread outward. “I will try to find her if you feel that’s wise, but I don’t see how she will help you with your grand scheme to take over leadership of Hell.”
The sound of two cats hissing at each other was audible from the other room. With a muttered curse, Sasha hopped down off the counter and dashed off to intervene. Ian took that moment to slip into a pair of jeans.
Anzo the demon lord—doe-eyed, golden-haired, and as sensual as the day was long—sighed, the sound sending another ripple of cold down Ian’s back. “Darling,” she drawled again in the voice that Ian had come to dread. “The workings of my mind are not important to you, so long as you follow my commands. And it is a command.”
The pain of his inner demon struggling to gain the upper hand almost caused him to double over. He focused for a moment on his breathing, a coping mechanism that sometimes worked.
“There is one other thing.”
He breathed in, holding his breath for a moment, rousing the dragon fire that always slumbered within him. When the breathing didn’t work to control the darkness, the fire usually could.
“I’m told there was a man who was foolishly trying to eliminate the demon in your kind.”
Ian allowed the fire to fill him, directing it at the darkness within.
“There was,” he said after another moment of struggle. “He was killed while I was with you in Abaddon.”
Another person he failed, another black mark on the tattered shreds of his soul. So much for his grand sacrifice to save Adam.
“I understand his daughter was also killed. Despite my direct command that she be brought to me.”
Ian’s fire tried to consume the darkness, but it was too great. “Why did you want Helen Larson? She was not helping her father.”
“Because you are so effective at demon elimination, darling,” Anzo said with a soft laugh that would have taken a few years off of Ian’s life if he hadn’t been immortal. “And if I had a team of dragon hunters working in concert…well, you can see how wonderful that would be.”
Ian swore to himself, and he knew he would do whatever it took to keep any other dragon hunters from her grasp. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because there is sure to be another one to take her place. There always is with your kind, isn’t there?”
“Not always.” He thought quickly. Sasha had told him Helen Larson was dead, but hadn’t mentioned anything about her élan vital. If the sword was lying around where the esprit could be taken and used…he had to find Helen’s remains and take her and her effects so they would not be violated.
“I want whoever takes her place,” Anzo said sharply. “And you will get her for me.”
“It’s okay,” Sasha said, popping her head into the room while Ian was trying to think of a way to answer such a horrifying request. “Paul was trying to get Ringo’s fave mousie toy, and George got caught in the middle, as usual. You want me to unpack the animals, or do you need me to save you from being forced to conduct the most heinous ritual sacrifices of innocents imaginable?”
Ian made a shooing motion that had the young woman rolling her eyes, but she turned and went out to deal with the menagerie inhabiting the rest of the apartment. With apparent nonchalance he said to Anzo, “I will do what I can. I really am busy, so if that’s all—”
“My sweet one, how you disappoint me. Here I was congratulating myself for having the sensibility to order my demons to set up mobile phone reception in Abaddon, just so your dulcet tones could caress my ears, and all you want to do is end this delightful conversation. Is that any way to behave? Your destruction of so many of Asmodeus’s minions has given me great pleasure, and I wished to reward you. Perhaps a gift, to show you the extent of my…devotion.”
The pain in his gut turned to nausea. “You don’t need to do that. I don’t need anything, and any gift you send will simply draw my attention from the job at hand.”
“Can I get a ferret?” Sasha called from the other room. “I saw a cool one being offered on Craigslist. It has three legs, and some sort of respiratory illness, but it’s totally tame and needs a home.”
“Modesty becomes you not,” Anzo said, and Ian could just picture her tapping her reddened lips with one tapered finger. “Now, what shall I give you? A body servant? A slave? The head of your enemy on a platter?”
Ian scribbled the words “NO FERRETS!” on a scrap of paper from the box of bathroom things and marched it to the bedroom door so Sasha could see it.
She made a face at him and continued to decant the hamsters and gerbils into their appropriate homes.
“I should go. It’s going to take a while to find this courier, and I know you are anxious for her.” Ian was aware he should use more flattery and sweet talk, but the fact that Anzo would detect an outright lie kept him to neutral statements.
“Yes, go, sweetness.” Anzo’s acquiescence raised warnings in Ian’s head. She sounded entirely too satisfied with herself. “Let me know what you find. I believe I shall use this new phone service to contact others. It’s been so long since I had contact with the mortal world.”
Ian sent up a little prayer of thanks for that small mercy.
“But remember that my patience is not endless.” Anzo’s voice was as smooth as velvet, but with razor-sharp edges that physically hurt Ian. “I want the courier found in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Impossible,” Ian declared, his mind filling with dread. “It will take me several weeks to search.”
“Very well,” Anzo said with a dramatic sigh. “You always do wrap me around your manly fingers. You may have until the end of the week.”
The pain of his demon side lashed him, claiming upper hand against his dragon self. Sasha looked up, a little frown pulling her eyebrows together. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, in a simple white summer dress, her waist-length brown hair pulled up into what Ian knew was called a messy bun.
He swore to himself again. Sasha was entirely too empathetic for his taste, and one of her greatest desires was saving him from what she referred to as dark threads running through what remained of his soul. Her attempts to do so could have dire consequences if he didn’t remain focused. Fighting the pain, he said, “Two weeks would be better.”
“So would having you in my bed. Would you care to barter that for some extra time?” Her voice was pure seduction, and it left his blood cold.
“The end of the week it is,” he said quickly, pushing aside the thought of what being her sexual slave would mean.
&nbs
p; “Excellent,” she said with a light little laugh that pierced his skin like shards of glass. Little bits of the tattered remains of his soul were stripped away, floating off on a sea of regret and despair. “Smooches, lovey!”
Sasha watched him closely, her eyes alert, obviously sensing his agony.
The call ended, and with a sigh of relief, he set down the phone, his body feeling like he’d gone ten rounds with the current heavyweight champion.
“Your scars are bleeding,” Sasha pointed out, her hands full of gerbils.
“They’re brands, not scars,” Ian replied, forcing down the pain and darkness before returning to the bathroom.
Both of his arms were covered in sleeves of what looked to mortal eyes like intricate tribal tattoos, the design going across the upper part of his chest. He touched a spot near his collarbone, the thickened skin beneath the tattoo hinting at its true source: brands that bound him to Anzo, leaving him powerless against a cruel master. And to think he’d gone willingly to this sacrifice, and for what? Adam was dead, just a week after Ian had tried to save him. And yesterday, Helen Larson had lost her life. So much death. So many failures…
His finger came away stained maroon. The spells carved into his flesh bled, a reminder of the power Anzo wielded even at so far a distance.
“There’s some hydrogen peroxide in the bathroom box,” Sasha called from the living room. “Do you want me to cast a ward on you? I’ve been practicing, and I think I have the good health one down. Mostly. There’s a tricky bit at the end that kind of gets away from me, but I think it will be okay.”
For a moment, despair swept over him, giving his inner demon free rein. He doubled over, clutching the edge of the sink while wave after wave of agony rippled outward from his belly. His dragon side struggled to regain control, to keep the demon half in check, to rule it and push it back into abeyance. For what seemed like the thousandth time, he cursed his inability to cope with his heritage.
Sasha appeared in the doorway. The girl had what in others would be classed an uncanny prescience, but he knew better. She simply could feel the darkness emanating from him when his demon side kicked up a fuss. “Wow, you are in a bad way. Burn it out, Ian.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” he gasped, willing himself to ignore the pain, to push it into the depths of his mind.
“Take your own advice, silly-billy,” she counseled, but her hand rubbing his back was comforting. “Let it out with fire. Just don’t burn down this apartment, because I don’t think the insurance company is going to believe two fires in one week is anything but arson.”
He let her light tone wash over him, his mind focused on the ability to conjure fire, allowing his dragon to gain strength, to leash the pain and cage the demon that wanted so desperately to rule him. Once again the fire rose within him until he spat out a ball of it into the sink, the bright flames playing merrily on the sides of the curved marble. He gathered it in his hands, spreading it across his arms and chest, effectively cauterizing the still-bleeding brands.
“Better?” Sasha asked, her eyes as bright as ever, but with a shadow behind them that momentarily startled him.
He felt as if he’d been run over by a freight train. “Yes, thank you.”
“It’s what you tell me to do when life gets hairy,” she said, her thin shoulders moving in a shrug under a light cotton sundress. “And speaking of bad crap going down, what did the boss lady want?”
“The same as usual,” he replied, pulling on a shirt. “Destruction of Asmodeus. Power. This time it’s a courier you said was coming to town with two esprits. Are you sure of that?”
“I wouldn’t have told you about them if I wasn’t sure,” she answered.
“It just seems oddly coincidental.”
Sasha grinned at him. “Life is funny that way, huh?”
He eyed her suspiciously. For some reason, he had the feeling the coincidence had its roots in Sasha. “Indeed.”
Sasha watched him return to the bedroom. “What are you going to do?”
“I have to go out.”
“To find the little angels?” She dashed out of the room, calling over her shoulder, “Let me just stuff all the furballs into their houses, and I’ll be set.”
“There’s no hurry—you don’t need to come with me. I’m not tracking the courier right now. There’s another task I need to see to.”
“What?” she asked when he finished dressing and buckled the belt from which hung his élan vital.
“I owe it to Adam Larson to see to his daughter.”
“She’s dead,” Sasha said blithely. “There’s not a lot you can do for her, is there?”
“I can make sure her possessions are held safe,” he answered. There were times when he wondered why, two weeks before when Anzo had finally allowed him to return to the mortal world, he agreed to taking on an apprentice, but then he remembered he didn’t have a choice in the matter.
“What belongings? Her sword? Who would want that? No one can use it but a dragon hunter.”
He leveled a long look at Sasha. “If the demon who threatened to take Adam found the esprit in Helen Larson’s sword, do you think it would remain there for very long?”
“Good point. Is finding her stuff dangerous?” Sasha asked, hurriedly filling water and food bowls for the various animals.
“Not particularly.”
“Risky?”
“Hardly.”
“Does it have the potential to let me mingle with mortals and learn their secret ways?” she asked, her eyes hopeful.
“Not in the least,” he said, gathering his phone, wallet, and car keys. He wondered absently if the woman who’d caught him the night before on the stairs would be lying in wait for him. The last thing he needed was unwanted attention from the mortals in his new home. Not with his tie to a dangerous demon lord. “I’m simply going to look at where Helen Larson died and see if she left anything behind other than her élan vital.”
“Adventure!” Sasha shrieked, and leaped to her feet. “I’ll go with you! I love adventures! Can I take my élan?”
“After yesterday?” Ian affixed her with a look he hoped was stern, but feared was merely martyred. “No.”
“Oh, come on, Ian. She asked for it. Literally.”
“So you say, but I don’t think you’ve told me exactly what happened.”
She grinned at him. “Like I’d keep anything from you?”
“A death is a death, and should be avoided at all costs.”
“Yes, but—”
“Repeat the code,” he said.
Sasha moaned, and waved her arms in the dramatic manner of an emotional teenager. “I know, I know, but—”
“Repeat it,” he commanded.
She rolled her eyes, made a face, but at least said as quickly as possible, running the words together, “Dragon hunters protect. Always protect. At the sacrifice of themselves, they protect. Which is what I did. Kind of. Zizi’s toenails! It’s like you think I don’t know what I’m doing. Now, can we go? I want to stop by that free trade coffee place the woman with the hots for you mentioned last night.”
“How in the name of Abaddon did you hear that?” he asked, pausing at the door. She stood right behind him, barefoot and bare-legged, appearing to the mortal world to be an innocent young woman of about eighteen or nineteen, fresh-faced and wholesome as the day was long.
The world didn’t know her as he did.
“I heard with my ears, silly.”
“You weren’t on the stairs—another woman was there, one covered in blood and vomit who ran away as soon as she could.”
“Yeah,” Sasha said slowly, her grin growing. “Kind of interesting, wasn’t that?”
“In what way?”
She gave a little one-shouldered shrug. “Nothing in particular. I just thought it was interesting.”
“Hmm. Where were you?”
“Boy, you have to know everything, don’t you!” Like quicksilver, her mood change
d from impish to petulant. “If you must know, I wasn’t behind Miss Blood and Gore. I was upstairs, looking down.”
“Why were you upstairs?” Ian couldn’t help but ask, even though he knew well he might regret doing so.
“Just looking around. I like to see where mortals live. Come on, come on, there are adventures to be had out there! Let’s go get them! And coffee. Lots of coffee. Can we get some pastries, too? Mama loves her pastries!”
Ian sighed and followed Sasha out the door. It was shaping up to be a very long day.
Day Three.
Wait, Is It Day Two? Now I’ve Lost Track of Time, and Mr. Manny Is Going to Yell at Me When I Turn This In to Him. Chapters Are Hard, Yo.
“RIGHT, HERE I AM. LET’S GET STARTED ON YOUR LIST.”
“What list?” I asked, and rubbed my face. My brain was still rummy from the disturbed sleep due to equally disturbing dreams. “What time is it, anyway? Why are you so peppy and happy? Isn’t it like the crack of dawn or something?”
Teresita bustled into my apartment holding two lattes, a gym bag slung over her shoulder. “It’s ten, and I’m energized because I have two kids, one husband, and an aged Saint Bernard to cope with in the morning. Also, I’m happy because the kids are off to day camp, my husband had his good morning fun while we were showering together, and Ralph is off to doggy day care with a box of his special treats. My day is yours, chica, so let’s not waste any of this precious time. Did you make a list already?” She set down the lattes on my tiny square orange-and-yellow tiled table and looked around.
“No. I just got up.” I pushed my hair out of my face and frowned at the sight of my arm. The bandage I’d wrapped around my wrist was rumpled and twisted, no doubt from my restless movements at night. “It’s ten? Really? I never sleep late like that.”
“Here, drink it. I got you a triple shot,” she said, pushing the latte at me before heading to my kitchen, busying herself with the toaster. “You need carbs and a shower. I’ll whip you up a little something while you’re in the shower, okay?”