The Shadow Weave

  His stomach sank. “You won’t be able to see him coming, will you?”

  “Not in the dark.”

  He closed his eyes. One of Samael’s deadliest assassins was hunting them, and he belonged to the only caste that could defeat Clio’s astral perception.

  She wrapped her other hand around his, her skin cold and clammy. He held on tightly, his jaw tense as he tried not to imagine Ash’s hand around her neck, crushing her fragile throat the way he’d crushed that reaper’s.

  Their only chance was to stay ahead of Ash. If they could find a guide quickly enough, he could get Clio to the Overworld where she would be safe. If he could get her home, she would survive.

  His survival, on the other hand …

  He couldn’t stay in her realm indefinitely. Eventually, he would have to return to Earth. His death warrant had been signed, his executioner was already waiting, and it was only a matter of time before he was another tally on the assassin’s kill list.

  Chapter Five

  He wished there was a way to make his brain stop. Just stop.

  Lying on a sofa that smelled of stale smoke and old beer, he stared at the water-spotted ceiling. The breeze outside whistled through cracks in the ill-fitting balcony door and ruffled the moldy drapes he’d pulled across the glass to block out the daylight. Soft scurrying sounds confirmed the reek of rodents was as recent as he’d feared. He’d never considered himself squeamish, but this place made his skin crawl.

  A dart of movement near the ceiling. A cockroach as long as his palm scurried down the wall and disappeared behind a crooked power socket.

  This room had been the best they could find before sunrise. With the money he’d gotten for Clio’s jewelry, they could have afforded something much better. They just hadn’t been able to find something better after trekking several miles away from Altaire Avenue.

  The unit held a sofa and a double bed, separated by a room divider and a dinky kitchen he intended to never enter. The cupboards held more cockroaches than cookware.

  On the other side of the divider, Clio was already sleeping—what he should have been doing as well. Casting defensive wards throughout the room and trip spells all around the building and halls had exhausted him. He was still recovering his magic.

  Every daemon had a well of magic within them, the maximum quantity of power their body could hold. For daemons who couldn’t naturally wield a metric crap-ton of magic, lodestones acted like mini magical batteries they could drain and recharge as needed. That’s how Lyre and his brothers could spend countless hours weaving magic without exhausting themselves.

  Clio had rescued Lyre’s diamond lodestones, but he’d drained them all at once. Even that much power hadn’t done much to offset the toll his KLOC spell had taken on him when it had blasted through all his magic in one shot.

  He shifted on the sofa, unable to escape the springs jabbing him through the scant padding of the cushions. He would’ve loved to pass out and sleep away the unrelenting anxiety, but he’d already been lying here for over an hour. Short of knocking himself out with a blow to the head, he probably wouldn’t sleep at all.

  Instead, he kept dwelling on his newfound “freedom.” Despite craving it his entire life, he’d never attempted to escape because he’d known the reality would be painfully harsh. To survive, he would have to run, hide, and sneak around in the darkest and dirtiest places—like this one. He would have to isolate himself, but he’d also have to support himself. Selling spellwork would draw too much attention, and he had no other marketable skills.

  Well, except for one. But he wasn’t eager to fall back on the old incubus stereotype. Not that he wouldn’t make a damn good prostitute, but still. He wasn’t that desperate … yet. He’d have to survive long enough to run out of money first.

  His thoughts kept turning in circles, and he finally gave up. Heaving himself off the sofa, he walked to the paneled divider and peered around the edge. Murky shadows draped the bed. Clio was curled in a tight ball under the blankets and her blond hair, splayed in a tangle over the single pillow, was the only visible part of her body.

  For a long moment, he stood still and silent, watching her. Debating. Pride pitted against weakness. Dignity against desperation.

  Screw pride.

  He stepped across the invisible line between his space and hers. He hesitated at the edge of the bed, then gave in.

  When the mattress dipped under his weight, she stirred. He slipped under the blankets and found her warmth. As he slid in next to her, she stiffened. Ignoring the unspoken protest, he curled around her, his chest pressed against her back.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded in a whisper, as though afraid to wake a sleeping neighbor. Lucky for them, the only eavesdroppers were rats.

  “I …” He closed his eyes. “I can’t sleep.”

  “So you woke me up?”

  “Were you sleeping?” he asked. She didn’t sound groggy.

  A moment of silence. “No. I can’t sleep either. But this is—I mean … you said I could have the bed.”

  He let out a slow, silent breath. She didn’t like him in bed with her. At the Consulate, they’d had to share, but she’d piled the blankets into a barricade between them. He couldn’t blame her. Her experiences with his caste hadn’t been positive.

  “Just a few minutes,” he whispered. “I just need … give me a few minutes.”

  The blankets rustled as she turned her head. She said nothing, but her silence was answer enough. He took a moment to appreciate the unfamiliar sting of rejection. Women had turned him away before—rarely—but this … this felt different. Sighing, he pushed himself up.

  Her hand closed around his arm, stopping his retreat.

  “You can stay,” she murmured. “If you want.”

  He almost asked if she was sure, but he didn’t want her to reconsider. Settling down again, he tucked himself against her back and gently slid his arm around her. She lay stiffly, but after a minute, she relaxed into the lumpy mattress.

  Closing his eyes again, he concentrated on the scent of her hair to block out the unfamiliar odors of the room. Slowly, the tension in his muscles eased.

  “This place is really gross,” she eventually commented.

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s a centipede in the bathtub.”

  “There are cockroaches in the walls.”

  She shuddered and he reflexively pulled her closer. Her fingers curled around his wrist.

  “It’s only for a few days,” she said reassuringly.

  His eyes cracked open but he could see only the back of her head. Despite everything, she was comforting him? He turned his hand and took her wrist instead, rubbing his thumb across the soft underside.

  “A few days,” he agreed. For her, at least.

  “What next? Are we going to the Overworld smugglers market tonight?”

  He hesitated. “We could, but I don’t know how dangerous it will be. And if any of our pursuers catch up with us, I’m not fit for a fight. Part of the reason I wanted a room near Altaire Avenue was so I could charge my lodestones.”

  “Oh.” She thought for a moment. “Um, how do you charge your stones … exactly?”

  He smirked since she couldn’t see it. The question was justified.

  Charging lodestones with magical energy required an unexpected ingredient: non-magical humans. A daemon’s energy was tied to their own magic, so it couldn’t be stolen by another daemon. But daemons could siphon human energy—their auras, so to speak—into lodestones to fuel magic.

  The tricky part was siphoning the energy. It required the human to be in a heightened emotional state where their energy radiated off them. Different daemons had different strategies for inciting emotion, but it was easy to guess how an incubus “excited” his human targets.

  “I prefer dance clubs,” he explained. “I can charge all my stones just by wandering across the dance floor a few times.”

  It was insanely easy. Take one crowd o
f humans, add booze, scanty outfits, and loud music, then presto—a virtual cloud of sexual energy waiting for him to draw into lodestones. Lyre almost felt bad for daemons who specialized in other emotions. A fear-inducing daemon like Ash couldn’t just waltz into the local terror pub to get a power fix.

  Clio shifted on the mattress as she mulled it over, and he had to force his thoughts onto a different track. Thinking about arousal in any fashion while she was pressed against him wasn’t a smart idea.

  “We can’t go back to Altaire Avenue,” she said. “They might be waiting for us.”

  “Yeah, someone will be watching. Since they saw us there already, I’m sure they’ve figured out that I want to top up my lodestones.”

  “Where can you go, then? There aren’t that many dance clubs in the city.”

  He mentally ran through his various options. He’d considered them all already, but he kept hoping he would come up with a different conclusion.

  “They’ll be watching any club I’ve ever gone to with my brothers.” He pressed his lips together. “But there’s another one I know of with a reputation for … an extreme lack of inhibition.”

  “And you’ve never been there?”

  “No.” He huffed out a breath. “It’s a succubus club.”

  A long pause. “Oh.”

  He knew she was waiting for him to explain further but he didn’t want to elaborate on how messed up his caste was.

  His caste was unique in that males and females were each other’s worst enemies. Because of the nature of their magic, they were forever pitted against one another. In the same way an innocent mind and body possessed a natural immunity, incubi—with their constantly lascivious minds and heightened sexuality—had zero ability to resist the aphrodesia of their female counterparts, and vice versa.

  So, obviously, him walking into a succubus lair was like a lamb walking into a wolf’s den. But continuing to traipse around Brinford with barely any magic and a draconian assassin on his tail was worse.

  “If the succubi in the club notice I’m there, they’ll attack me,” he finally said. “But if we’re quick, I think we could get in and out without any trouble. You could spot any succubi before they got close, right?”

  She nodded, her head bobbing against the limp pillow. “So we go to the succubus club first, then on to the smugglers market?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  She chuckled. “It’s a date, then.”

  “That might have been sarcastic, but I guarantee any date with me will be romantic.”

  “Oh, right, of course.”

  He snorted at her dry tone. They both fell silent, and she nestled into the blankets. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over her wrist, listening to her breathing soften and trying not to read into her “date” comment. She knew incubi didn’t date, right? No incubus was capable of long-term commitment. They couldn’t even manage short-term commitment most of the time.

  Exhaling, he closed his eyes. It was always the same. He wanted what he hadn’t yet had, but once he got it, he would lose interest. That’s how it went with incubi. The ultimate playboys, not by choice but by nature. They couldn’t resist the next new flavor.

  But right now, she was all he could focus on, and as he buried his face in her hair, he let her scent, her warmth, and her fingers twined in his lull him to sleep.

  Chapter Six

  Peeking around Lyre’s shoulder, Clio reminded herself to take a deep breath. She could do this. It was just a dance club, for crying out loud.

  Tell that to her churning stomach.

  Without the line out front and the pulsating dance beat leaking through the walls, she never would have guessed what the abandoned warehouse was. The street was filthy and otherwise abandoned, and she’d thought it was a weird location for a club. But as she stood in line, watching the other club goers, she began to understand how this place was different.

  For starters, its patrons were the next level up from Altaire Avenue in terms of extreme outfits. Fishnet stockings and miniskirts were the standard. Hair in all colors, dark makeup—on men and women—lots and lots of bare skin. There were no average-looking people in t-shirts and jeans.

  But there were a few very unaverage-looking daemons.

  To her asper, their auras were obvious, and most daemons could sense their own kind. But, somehow, the humans recognized the daemons too. Each daemon was surrounded by half a dozen admirers, usually of the opposite sex, who couldn’t get enough of the daemon’s attention. It wasn’t something she was used to seeing.

  As the line shuffled closer to the door, she nervously adjusted her hair. It fell down her back in loose waves. Before approaching the building, she and Lyre had made a few quick wardrobe adjustments. Her jacket and his sweater were tucked in a hidden nook in the alley, and she’d knotted the hem of her shirt so a hand’s width of her midriff was bare. Lyre had ripped the sleeves off his shirt—already damaged anyway, so no big loss. A simple illusion spell had darkened his hair to brown, which wasn’t quite as striking as his natural pale blond, but he was already attracting attention.

  The bouncers, two daemons roughly the size of grizzly bears, waved her and Lyre forward. They followed a scantily clad couple down a long, empty hall. In a small room at the end, a smiling woman held a black velvet box. The first couple each took something from inside it before continuing.

  “First time here?” the woman asked as Clio and Lyre walked up. “The Styx is for indulgence of all kinds. Leave your inhibitions at the door by donning a complimentary masquerade mask. Here, you can be whoever you want to be.”

  “Is it mandatory?” Lyre asked.

  The woman stared at him before recovering her composure. “No, and it would be a shame to cover a face like yours.” She cleared her throat. “Black masks are for humans, while silver masks are for our other guests.”

  The woman held out the box and Clio took a black mask—not wanting to announce herself as a daemon—then she and Lyre walked into the main club. Red and blue lights flashed and zoomed all over, but they did little to illuminate the darkness. A long bar ran along one side, surrounded by a few tiny tables with stools, and in the center was a dance floor where hundreds of bodies writhed in time to the driving beat.

  That part she’d expected, but she hadn’t anticipated the platforms with silver poles where women in their underwear gyrated against the metal. And she hadn’t expected the stage at the back where dancers in scandalous costumes were sinuously twisting either alone or up against each other, their hips moving ceaselessly.

  Squinting, Clio scanned the room again, this time using her asper. Minimal spellwork around the perimeter—all in the golden magic she’d come to associate with incubi—and a smattering of colorful daemon auras throughout the space. No sign of succubi, though.

  The daemon clubbers in shining silver masks were the center of attention wherever they went. Humans followed them in worshipful awe, and Clio understood why the club was so notorious. This sort of human/daemon mingling wasn’t exactly taboo, but daemons generally hid their true natures around humans. The Styx was a haven for humans to indulge in daemon fantasies and fetishes, and it was an open hunting ground for daemons who thrived on human attention.

  Like a certain incubus.

  Beside her, Lyre was fixated on the dance floor. Taking his arm, she pulled him off to one side so they weren’t blocking foot traffic. Tense and unblinking, he took it all in with dilated pupils and parted lips.

  “Are you ready?” When he didn’t respond, she squeezed his arm and raised her voice over the music. “Lyre, are you ready?”

  “Huh?” He finally looked at her but his gaze wasn’t quite in focus.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” His attention twitched away from her as though inexorably drawn to the dance floor. “This place is … off the charts.”

  She didn’t know what charts he was talking about or whether being off them was a good thing. “Can you charge your lod
estones?”

  “Oh, yeah. In here? No problem.”

  His gaze flashed around the room again, but when he turned back to her, his sudden somber concentration took her by surprise.

  “Are you ready?” he asked. “Once I get out there, I won’t be able to sense a succubus approaching. If you see anything suspicious at all, you need to get us out—even if you have to drag me away.”

  “Drag you?” she repeated with a frown.

  A feverish light sparked in his eyes. “This place is a literal sauna of lust, and everyone here is basking in it. I’ll try to stick to the edge of the dance floor, but …” He smiled crookedly. “I’ll be very distracted.”

  “Oh.” That sounded ominous. “Okay.”

  His smile faded and he brushed his fingers across her hand. “I’m counting on you, Clio.”

  Her breath caught. “I’ll watch your back, I promise.”

  His smile bloomed again, stealing the last of the air from her lungs, then he was moving. She let him get ten steps ahead of her before pulling her silly black mask on and following him to the dance floor. Once there, she got a front row seat to just what an incubus on the prowl could do.

  His natural grace multiplied as he swayed to the music, and each smooth movement embodied seduction. Even at a distance, Clio couldn’t control her racing pulse.

  The female dancers didn’t miss his approach either. Within moments, he had one girl in front of him and one behind, both rubbing their bodies against his in the guise of dancing. In another few seconds, dancers swarmed him, but he somehow slid through the group, briefly falling into sync with one woman after another, his hands sliding over her hips or his eyes capturing hers until she couldn’t look away from him.

  It was good Clio had more important things to focus on, because watching those girls hang all over him was causing her some unwelcome twists of jealousy. She kept her attention moving, her asper in focus. The bright, colorful auras of the daemons in the club were like glowing signs, easy to spot and track, but she kept scanning anyway. The dance floor, the bar, the tables, the doors, back to the dance floor, over and over.