From the outside, the library looked like any other library. Hell, it did from the inside too, but it wasn’t. Humans came and left without ever noticing the enchantment. Keira didn’t know how Addison had pulled it off, because supers didn’t do favors for anyone, especially not the group that was trying to take them down.
The enchantment made it impossible for normal humans to see the metal door near the restrooms that led into the archives. But the true beauty of the magic was that supers were blind to the whole place—they couldn’t see the building, even if they knew exactly where it was. No non-human could step foot inside, making it a sanctuary. Fitting, seeing how Keira kind of considered Addison a saint. But Addison didn’t hang out here—only a few people knew where she lived, and Keira wasn’t one of those people.
A familiar-looking seer sat in an oversized chair near the archive door. His hair was just long enough to hide his eyes, make the way he checked her out a little less obvious. To those less distrustful and jaded than Keira, it looked like he was reading. She sensed the tension in his body more than saw it, felt an increased amount of energy or something. A lookout? Security? That was new.
He wouldn’t start anything unless completely necessary, not with so many humans around, but that was a fight she’d love to be in. Even though he was sitting, she could tell the guy was tall, at least 6’3”, with a lot of muscle beneath his jeans and button-down shirt. He must have been a toy—any seer that attractive and fit got put into a toy box the second they turned eighteen, becoming a plaything for any horny supernatural with enough cash.
He lifted his head but didn’t get up, even when she was close enough to have jumped him. She’d never understand people.
“Hey.”
The guy didn’t acknowledge she’d said anything.
“I’m going to…” Keira gestured to the door, unsure of how to deal with him.
Shaking his head slowly, he leaned forward and whispered, “Weapons stay out here.”
“No, they stay with me.” Always. She’d been here a few times and had never had to get past security. “What’s going on?”
“The world is a dangerous place. Behind that door isn’t…unless you make it so. Are you going to make it so?”
“I’m just here to talk to Parker.”
He grumbled something, taking his cellphone out and calling someone. “Seer. Early twenties.” Judgmental eyes slowly traveled the length of Keira’s body. “Why would I care about that?” He sighed at whatever the person said. “What’s your name?”
She gave it to him, knowing he’d be fine with keeping her ass waiting around all day. “What’s yours?”
He ignored her, grumbling something else into the phone before hanging up. “You can go in, but you don’t want to fuck with me, seer.”
“Yeah, I got that. Maybe we should work out a secret handshake or something. Make your job easier.”
“Leave me alone now,” he said. “I’m reading.”
“Wow, thanks, stranger,” she said as she opened the door. Imagine how nice he’d be if we weren’t on the same side. After making sure the door latch clicked back into place, she walked down the short hallway to the main archive room.
“Parker? You in here?” Keira trailed her finger uneasily along the line of books at shoulder height, glancing up about five more feet to the top of the shelf. Why the hell would anyone want this much paper? Huge fire hazard. Huge.
The Rising’s unofficial lead historian looked up from what had to be the world’s fattest book—probably the most boring, too. All Keira could see of the woman sitting next to Parker was long brown hair that fell onto the Encyclopedia Gigantica in front of them.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Parker asked. “And how’d you get in?”
“I told Graham to let her in,” the woman said, still looking down.
“That man is so overprotective of you, I’m shocked he listened.”
That was Graham? He’d looked kind of familiar, but Keira’s time with Graham involved one of them being unconscious while the other fought the serial-killing demon. But if that guy was Graham, then… Damn, no wonder he was so rude. Guess which member of the Rising would come with her own security.
Oh, man. Keira felt intimidation slam into every cell of her body. Never happened before, and would probably never happen again. But then, she’d never expected to be in the same room as the dat vitae. Right now, Addison was just a rumor in the Heights, a metaphorical ghost—someone to be whispered about, hated or admired. Not that any seer would admit to believing in her or any super admit they were afraid of her.
But everyone who believed she existed wanted a piece of her. The super who got hold of her would be rich beyond imagining, their name going down as the savior of all supernatural races in the North American zone, if not the world, in books like the one on the table. Because Addison was the one person who could end all of them. And all the wars. And all the abuse.
Keira’s number one—and only—hero. So she kept her mouth shut, because anything she said would sound completely moronic.
Parker came over. “Do you need something?” She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose, blinking at the same time, as if it had been hours since she’d been totally vertical. Which it probably had been.
“Um…” Keira felt like an idiot. How could she ask Parker what she wanted to ask with Addison right there? “I had a question.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Um…” Since Addison still hadn’t glanced up, Keira nodded towards a door, hoping Parker would take the hint and they could talk in the hall, or outside, or anywhere Addison couldn’t see Keira sweat and hear her stutter.
“I’m not looking up because I have a feeling you want privacy,” Addison said. “But since this book has to go back tomorrow, I can’t leave yet. So my lack of greeting has nothing to do with disrespect of your person and everything to do with respect for your privacy. Is it working?”
“I…guess so.”
It bothered Keira a lot when Parker rolled her eyes. Without Addison, seers wouldn’t have organized themselves for decades, if not centuries. And the little they’d accomplished would be nothing.
“I know you so well now, I can even hear your eyes roll, Parker.” Addison turned an enormous page of the book. “Go talk to the poor girl. I’ll be fine.”
“You mean you can live without me?” Parker asked, smiling. “Want some tea, Add?”
“That’d be great. Good luck with whatever you’re working on.”
“Thanks,” Keira managed to get out. Then she tried again. “You too. With whatever you’re working on.”
Addison laughed lightly and said, “If it doesn’t bore me to death.” Then she paused. “Keira? Thanks, by the way.”
The breath Keira took got caught halfway down before her throat closed. Addison knew her name and who she was without actually looking at her. As far as standing in front of your heroes went, it didn’t get much better than that. Then she remembered telling it to the guy haunting the door and him disgustedly mumbling it into a cellphone. Major letdown, but far more logical. Keira was a nothing in the Rising—a foot soldier.
Addison was everything. Nobody knew the full story on the dat vitae or all the power that came with it. All they knew was that the supers sensed her as a seer even though she was poison to all of them. Rumor was that she’d even gotten close enough to the Prime of the zone to take him out. But the party had been broken up by a bunch of demons before she could. Demons. Ugh. The one Keira knew had probably been there.
“For what?” she finally asked.
Addison sighed and chewed on a nail without looking up. “For saving my life.”
“I didn’t—”
“I can’t…” Addison looked up from the book. Keira’s entire body tightened. It was her—the woman who…oh shit. Two months ago, Keira had told the savior of their half of the world to stay out of her way. She may have even used the word ‘fucking’ in there somewher
e. Her hero. No, her fucking hero. She’d shoved her to the ground and—
“I can’t thank Nadine, but I can thank you. Because you’re still here. So let me?”
“Okay.” Keira was having trouble concentrating on anything other than how she should apologize for what she’d said. Life on the line or not—you don’t tell your idol to get out of your fucking way.
“I should’ve done this earlier, you know. Should’ve”—Addison shrugged—“done a lot of stuff differently. That night and every night since. Sorry.”
“No need. We know what we’re signing up for.”
“Do we? Do we ever?”
“Before you? No. That’s what we’re trying to change, right?”
The pause that followed was strangely peaceful. Maybe a moment to remember that night, maybe another to remember all the nights before it.
“I’ve had enough silence today,” Parker said. “Come talk to me while I magically boil water using nothing but electricity and a teapot.”
Keira followed her into a small kitchen down the hall from the main room. “Is Addison doing okay?”
“She’s…tired. Stressed out because she hasn’t bounced back from what happened. Plus, it’s not easy being the person almost everyone wants dead. But she’s tough, and she’ll be fine.” The historian filled a teapot and plugged it in while shoving a cookie into her mouth. “Can you get the cups down?” She handed Keira a cookie and pointed to the cabinet behind her. “I know you didn’t come here just to hang out with me. Hey, why does no one stop by just to hang out with me?”
Keira wasn’t sure if she was supposed to answer, but that didn’t stop her. “Just a thought, but maybe it’s because that would also mean hanging out in a library that is currently a huge pain in the ass and potentially deadly to get into.”
Parker smiled. “I thought it was because I’m kind of a bitch, and only the strongest of people can put up with me.”
“No, that’s why no one hangs out with me.”
“And why I like you more every time we meet. So, my bitchy friend, what do you need to know?”
“Everything I can about demons.” Hopefully it would all be in one small, easy-to-read, pocket-sized volume so Keira wouldn’t have to go into more detail.
“Okay. Why demons?”
Bummer. Go vague or go home. “I ran into one on a job. Two actually, but one of them was—”
“Could you tell if it was male or female?”
“Very male.”
Parker’s eyes widened. They hadn’t spent that much time together, but Keira knew that Parker was still the assistant of a well-known historian, which meant she had spent most of her life surrounded by books and far away from the action. So every time Keira mentioned anything about the field or anything real, Parker got excited. “Describe what he looked like. The more you can tell me, the more accurate info I can give you about his breed.”
“How many different breeds are there?”
“Tons. It’s a whole cultural thing, but up here—in what they refer to as ‘topside’ or ‘above the crust’—we only see the strongest ones. The others can’t leave hell without help, usually in the form of someone stupid playing around with the black arts and then accidentally breaking the salt circle.”
“Well, the one I see most often is definitely male. Um…tall, big…” Well, isn’t this is humiliating.
“Can you be more specific? What was his coloring like? How big and tall?”
“He looks human, but with the best tan you’ve ever seen. So”—she shrugged—“ethnic looking, I guess. 6’ 3” maybe 6’4”. Big, like…really muscly. Not huge body builder-ish, but close.” The type of muscle built to use, not just to show off or stare at in the mirror.
“That narrows it down. Does he have any markings? They’d look like tattoos.”
“Yeah. Lots of them. On his arms, one shoulder and on most of his back. All black.” She stopped, remembering all the places she’d seen when he took off his shirt and then after they’d fought and most of their clothing had gone missing somehow. Damn it. How was she supposed to explain that? Our clothes fell off when he got too hot. “One on his hip that kind of comes up onto his abs and side…Another on his upper thigh, and—”
“Wow,” Parker said, her eyes a lot larger. “Exactly how much of him did you see?”
“A bit.”
“Then why are you blushing so badly?”
Was she? “I think I’m allergic to the cookies.”
“You are so full of shit.” She grabbed Keira’s hand and pulled her down the hall. “She’s going to freak. Addison!”
“No, Parker! Wait!”
Seven
“No, Parker,” Keira called, a few steps behind the historian. “Please don’t tell her anything. It’s the cookies. I swear. The butter or something. I have a very sensitive digestive system. Lots of allergies. Lots.”
“Addison! You’re never going to believe this!”
“What?”
“Keira met a demon,” Parker said. “A male demon.”
The dat vitae’s inhalation was jagged, her shoulders lifting. “Was it—?”
“It wasn’t him.” She turned to Keira, her eyes hinting. “The one who…”
“No! No, he doesn’t look anything like that one.”
“This one looks human, right? Mostly?”
“Um…Yeah,” was the simple answer. ‘If most humans looked like him, everyone would be too busy either gawking or screwing to ever get anything done,’ was far more accurate.
“Did you send him back to hell?” Addison was so young, so feminine, and not much older than Keira was. It made sense—seers weren’t known for their long lifespans, so everyone Keira had met in the Rising was under thirty. Parker looked a little older than she did, but not much. This shit tended to age them. Made them feel ancient at twenty-five.
“No.”
“No,” Parker said, “she didn’t send him back to hell—which you should learn how to do by the way—but she saw a whole lot of his body and was blushing. Can you please talk to her for me?”
“Hmm…” Addison leaned back in her chair and blew out a breath. “How much of his body?”
“Most of it.”
“But you’re okay, and he’s still above the crust.”
“I didn’t do anything bad. Really. I just saw him.”
“Sit down.” Addison pushed out the chair next to her with her foot. “How much do you know about demons?”
“Not much, which is why I’m here.”
“Okay, then let’s start at the beginning of what we know. Which honestly isn’t that much. Of all the supers, the demons are the worst at sharing and the least interested in keeping track of their histories. The angels are in second place, but that doesn’t matter for this conversation. First thing you need to know: How to get rid of one.”
Keira nodded. Not the typical starting point, but obviously the most important.
The historian took over. “Obviously, you know about the salt circle, so I’ll skip that. Demons can’t die, but they can be sent back to hell with a complicated incantation like the one you saw me use before. That was a lower-level demon who got summoned and somehow got loose, so he’s gone for good. But unfortunately, Level Ones like yours can come right back up through another portal, which means you need to get more creative with them.”
“And by ‘creative,’ she means violent,” Addison said.
“I’m okay with violence.”
“Good,” Parker said. “Because this is the gross part. The only way you can permanently get rid of a Level One is to chop him apart and put each piece in salt—saltwater being the easiest option.”
“Chop him into pieces.” Keira watched both women nod as if they were talking about cleaning a fish or something else only mildly disgusting. “That can’t be easy. You know, keeping them still long enough to hack them into bits.” Wow, she’d seen, felt, and done a lot of things, but chopping up a body wasn’t anything she’d ever imagi
ned having to do.
“Supposedly salted rope will hold them still—rope soaked in salt water.” Parker finally grimaced when she realized they weren’t talking academically now. “Supposedly.”
“That’s why we try to just stay away from them,” Addison said. “But you’re never going to have to worry about that, so let’s go back to the demon you saw and were blushing about. Was he attractive?”
“A little,” she said quietly.
“A little or a lot. It matters, so be honest.”
“A lot. A whole lot. Like, a huge lot.”
“Scale of one to ten.”
“Between eleven and twelve.”
Addison nodded. “Well, most demons are just gross, even the ones who look human.” She glanced at Parker. “A demon who’s ‘a huge lot’ attractive. Gotta be a Fosfer demon, don’t you think?”
“Definitely. Do you remember those pictures Nadine brought us of the one she spotted in April? Holy shit was that guy hot. Literally and figuratively.”
“Fosfer demons are occasionally attractive,” Addison said. “Not often, but I don’t know your taste in men, and don’t want to judge. I’ve only actually spoken with one of them and, even though he was a complete asshole that…my ex worked with, the guy was also offensively gorgeous.”
“You have an ex who works with demons?”
“Um…’ex’ is the wrong name for what he is, but it’s complicated.”
They were all silent for a reason Keira didn’t understand.
Parker cleared her throat. “The Fosfer you met is a Level One. The lower-level demons can’t come up here unless they’re summoned. But Level Ones are still dangerous, not only because they’re really unpleasant and burn things. Do you know why it’s illegal for them to mate—and I use the word deliberately, because demons don’t make love or anything—with a human?”
The historian didn’t wait for Keira to answer, probably because she knew how little time Keira spent in the academic side of their world. “I’ve read a ton about them and still barely know anything. There are only a few documented cases of it ever happening and always with escaped lower-level demons. But since the Treaty law applies to all of them, historians believe it’s the same regardless of which layer of hell they’re from. If a demon mates with a human, the human is destroyed. Completely and permanently. So no matter what this Fosfer demon looks like or what he says to get into your pants, don’t do it. They don’t feel things the way we do.”