The Demon King

  He smiled. “Of course not. That’s Baxter’s. His dad left him a ton of money and he has a few nice rides because of it. Unfortunately, that’s also a point of contention between him and his girlfriend.”

  Dahlia thought for a moment and decided not to say anything about that. It was best not to get involved in people’s private romantic lives. She had enough to worry about with her own. But the “ton of money” thing did open a new avenue of conversation. “You know, your dad obviously left you a bit of a legacy as well,” she said as they got back into the car and buckled up. “At least…if that gilded room I woke up in is any indication.” She pictured the chamber of gold and shook her head in wonder.

  Laz looked over from the driver’s seat as he turned the key in the ignition. “That was Bael’s doing. He thought it only fitting for his queen.”

  Dahlia looked at his profile and caught the edge of the smile that was still there.

  “But yeah… I guess he did,” he said, putting the car in drive and pulling back out onto the empty road. The night was long and dark on either side of the highway. There wasn’t much civilization to pierce the darkness with its electricity. Dahlia reached up and pushed the button that allowed the moon roof to slide easily back into its slot. A slight breeze caught her hair and the stars twinkled overhead. They only did that out here, away from the city.

  But the city was where they needed to be. More people, more places to hide. The bigger the commotion around them, the easier it would be for them to blend in. Out here, there was less of a chance of someone getting hurt, yes. But there was a far greater chance of them being singled out amidst the nothing around them.

  “I think it would be best if we turned around and headed back into town,” she said.

  Laz glanced at her, slowed the car, checked the rearview mirror, and turned the car around in a clean one-eighty. “I was thinking the same thing.” He straightened the car out and took it to cruise control. Dahlia felt strangely warm having him agree with her. It was nice not having to defend an idea, especially to a man.

  “I know just the place too,” he added. “Somewhere crowded enough we’ll hopefully blend in, but shady enough that if a fight starts, it’s no big loss of innocent humanity.” He flashed her a killer smile, and she felt her cheeks warm. She looked away to hide the blush and stared out the window at the passing darkness.

  They drove for a moment in silence before he said, “By the way, about your question earlier… I think I’m probably a little bit of both.”

  Dahlia frowned. “What?” She blinked a few times. “What question earlier?”

  “You asked whether I was a good cop or a dick cop.”

  Dahlia’s eyes widened. “I totally didn’t mean that question.”

  Lazarus laughed. It was a beautiful sound, easy and relaxed despite the situation. “I know. But I also know you kind of did.” He shrugged. “There’s a lot of shit going down. Tension is high. The truth is, I think a lot of us are dicks. Too many people in general are dicks, cop or not. But some of us?” He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh that sounded weary and real. “Some of us are genuinely good. Or at least we set out to do good, and it’s why we join the force in the first place.”

  “Is that why you joined?”

  He looked at her and nodded. “My adoptive mother was on the force. Her father before her. My grandfather was one hell of a man. He was the only African American officer in his precinct – the first in his precinct. I was named after him, Steven Dixon. Both died in the line of duty and neither one of them would have changed a thing.”

  Dahlia was silent a long time. Her head was spinning. She’d just learned more about Steven Lazarus in the span of a few seconds than she was guessing most people learned about him ever.

  “My adoptive mother, Rosa, was an Episcopalian in a family of Baptists. She was the black sheep of her family. She used to joke about being the black sheep in a black family and wondered if she should call herself a white sheep instead.” He chuckled, and Dahlia could hear the pain lacing the edges of his quiet laughter. He missed her.

  He grew quiet, and the air in the car filled with memories. “She was a cop my whole life. I was a latch-key kid, but having grown up as one, I can tell you there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. She taught me to be careful, what to do, where to go, how to cook. She called me constantly, and she was never late getting home, not without warning. We had a support system of friends all around us, and I never went hungry and I always had clothes that fit. She helped me with my homework, and when she couldn’t, she found someone who could.” He smiled. “Usually someone else on the force. Her partner was particularly good at algebra. He tutored me sometimes.”

  He fell silent again before he said, “My mom came home one night and her eyes looked strange to me. I was seven. She wouldn’t tell me what had happened at work, would never talk about it. But that night, she tucked me in and told me that there was evil in the world. And it wasn’t The Joker or Darth Vader. It wasn’t funny and it wasn’t cool. It was just wrong. And that if I was going to become a cop like I’d always said I wanted to, I needed to know that I would one day come face to face with that wrongness. And it wouldn’t back down. So neither could I. Because that was what wearing the badge was all about.”

  Dahlia swallowed hard. Her throat felt thick, and her lungs heavy. She knew that wrongness. She could only imagine what Rosa Dixon had seen that night. There was so much wrong in the world… especially the human world.

  Lazarus glanced at her. “She was right, of course. I’ve faced that wrongness a hundred times in the line of work. A hundred reasons to be afraid, to quit, to leave the mess to someone else. You have to make a choice each time. And those of us who don’t back down, I guess you could say we’re the good cops. But I’ve been known to be a dick from time to time too.” He grinned, and it was like whiplash.

  Dahlia’s lungs instantly felt lighter, and she inhaled, laughing and shaking her head.

  “In all honesty, I think part of the problem is that so many of us on the force are just too damn young,” he said, switching on his turning signal to make an upcoming turn. “If I had my way, I’d make the minimum age for joining around thirty, maybe a little higher. Think about it. We have a minimum age for presidency, and we have it for a reason. We realize that humans just haven’t been through enough of life’s misfortunes to be capable of making empathetic or wise decisions before a certain age. So a candidate has to be thirty-five before he or she can even try to run our country. But down here in the thick of it, we take kids straight out of high school, give them guns and badges, and set them loose on an unsuspecting population. Which one is really worse? Which situation is potentially more dangerous? In the heat of a crime, cops don’t have a congress to stop them from making stupid decisions.”

  Dahlia couldn’t argue with much of that logic. There were always exceptions, of course. Some really bright kids graduated high school at the age of twelve, after all. But in general, he wasn’t far off the mark. Age paved the way for wisdom.

  What did surprise her was the fact that a police officer himself was admitting any of it. She was learning more about Steven Lazarus with each passing breath. And the more she learned about him… the more she liked him. He had a past, he had depth and character, and he used his brain. In the thirty or so years he’d been alive, it seemed he’d done more thinking than a number of the Tuath fae men she’d bedded had done in their lifetimes.

  “Wisdom takes time to develop, like good liquor. A seasoned captain is a century-old bottle of Scotch.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “An unfortunate number of rookies I’ve had to deal with are like Coors Light in comparison.”

  “Is Coors Light so bad?” she asked, never having had the beverage.

  “I’m so glad you asked me that, darling,” he said as he parked the car and she looked up to find them in front of what looked like an honest to goodness roadhouse bar. “Because that’s probably about all they serve in this
place.”

  Chapter Forty

  “So tell me about Boston,” Dahlia said. She looked down dubiously at the drink he’d set in front of her. She’d told him about the reaction she had to the Lifeblood beside the river only a few hours ago and mentioned that the strange thing was, she was thirsty, just not for blood. He was wondering whether the fact that she was becoming the Demon Queen – it was possible – meant that the vampirism was fading away. Or if perhaps the vampirism had been temporary. He had theories and wanted to test them. It was a detective thing.

  So he’d ordered her a soda, figuring the bubbles would feel nice on a sore throat. That, she’d downed easily with no repercussions. Laz had then upped the stakes, ordering her something a wee bit stronger.

  But she fingered the shot glass in front of her and peered down into it as if it would reveal something magical.

  “It’s just tequila,” Laz chuckled. “You’ve had tequila before, right?”

  “Honestly? No.” She looked at him sheepishly.

  That was surprising. “Aren’t you something like several thousand years old?”

  She shot him a reproachful look. “I know your mother taught you never to mention a woman’s age. But it’s three thousand, nine hundred and forty-four. Give or take a few months. Most fae stop counting.” She shrugged. “For some reason I kept doing it. But that’s beside the point. A butterfly no doubt thinks a human has done everything. When in truth, there is too much for anyone to do.”

  Laz studied her profile, momentarily lost in the wonder of her. “So when is your birthday?”

  She glanced at him again, and he didn’t fail to notice she still hadn’t tried the shot of tequila. “Well, in the Unseelie Realm, we count time differently than you do. Our calendar is not really anything like yours. But in the human world, this year it would be around the fourteenth of November.”

  He mentally filed the date away in a bright red file folder marked Vital. “Good to know,” he said as he lifted his own glass, one filled with the same kind of soda she’d had earlier. He wasn’t going to chance dulling his senses right now. But he sure as hell wouldn’t mind if Dahlia did, just a little. “To new beginnings,” he said, quoting what was probably one of the oldest toasts in history. But he meant it.

  “To new beginnings,” she repeated, hesitantly lifting her own shot glass and clinking it against his tumbler. “And to not throwing up anymore. That is not fun,” she added in a mumble just before she put the glass to her lips, threw back her head, and swallowed the contents down in one practiced gulp.

  His eyebrows hit his hairline. “I thought you said you’d never had tequila.”

  She gritted her teeth. Then she licked her lips and smiled. “I haven’t. But I never said I hadn’t done shots. You should try some of the stuff we have in my realm. This is fruit juice in comparison. Thenobrian Black would curl your toes.” She didn’t have to ask for a refill; the bartender was in front of her in a heartbeat, pouring amber gold liquid to the brim.

  Laz shot him a warning look, and the burly man lifted his chin a little, but stepped back. Laz had a feeling the badge on his belt had more to do with that than Laz did himself. The room was filled with men like the bartender – and women too. The establishment was one solid wooden structure, unpainted and undecorated but for the cobwebs in the far corner rafters, the neon lights above the bar, and the remnants of peanut shells, tobacco spit, and cigarette butts on the cement floor. It smelled like smoke and sweat and the slightly sour tinge of old alcohol.

  Laz counted a good three dozen people filling the space between the walls. They were either seated at one of the six large round tables or at the bar, or stood against the walls in laid back groups. Most joked with one another, gave in to a little rough housing, or stood quietly to drink. A lot of them were actually looking at their smart phones. Four old speakers sat visible, wired and dusty, in the four corners of the room. The Steve Miller Band filled the moments between laughter and friendly shouts with sweet melody and guitar riffs.

  “I love this song,” said Dahlia before she threw back her second shot without hesitation. She swallowed hard, banged down her glass, and sang along. “I’m a joker, I’m a smoker, I’m a midnight toker….”

  A spike of alarm went through Laz. “Hey, how are you feeling?” He didn’t want her going Mount Vesuvius all over the bar if the liquor didn’t agree with her any better than the Lifeblood had.

  She smiled and turned a brilliant green gaze on him. “I actually feel… really good,” she said, nodding to herself. “In fact, it’s been a while since I felt this good. Like, since the last time I had coffee.”

  That’s right, Laz recalled. For some fae, coffee had a nearly opiatic effect. Did that mean she was feeling high? Buzzed? Was the alcohol actually working on her? Was the vampire in her gone? Or being replaced by something else?

  She put her hand over the top of her glass and said, “Maybe I should slow down a little.” The bartender looked disappointed, but he had plenty of other customers to deal with. “So… is this a biker bar?” she asked softly, leaning into him so no one else would hear her. The scent of cherry blossoms washed over him, and he almost closed his eyes to inhale.

  “I guess you could call it that,” he admitted. Lynnard Skynnard took the place of Steve Miller, and a woman at one of the half dozen round tables in the room began dancing in her seat. She had thirty tattoos if she had any, and there was enough leather in the room to give an entire ranch back its skin.

  Plus, the domino-line of bikes outside was a dead give away. His was the only vehicle with in the parking lot with doors. In his defense, the car had been missing one of its doors only hours earlier.

  “I’ve never been to one,” Dahlia said innocently. Her eyes were glittering like green diamonds as she took in her surroundings. “It’s pretty cool! Great taste in music!” She started moving on her bar stool as well. Then she slid off of it and simply swung her hips back and forth in a full-on dance. It was mesmerizing, enticing, and mouth watering.

  The girl who’d been bouncing in her seat saw Dahlia. Hell, everyone did. “That’s it, honey!” the woman shouted. “You shake that thing!” She stood up to join her.

  The guy behind the bar started moving with the music as well. Laz watched in fascinated silence as like a ripple of happiness, one after another, all fifty or so of the bar’s patrons began to dance. Most lifted their drinks when they stood, and expertly placed their thumbs over the bottle mouth holes to keep the beers from spilling.

  Others just stood up and gave in to the music with abandon. Lynnard Skynnard transitioned into the Sultans of Swing, and Dahlia leaned over him, placing her hands on his knees. “Come on cowboy. Don’t cops know how to dance?”

  He smiled, flashing just enough fang that only she could see. Then he grabbed her hands, stood from the bar stool, and spun her around as if he’d been taking dance lessons his whole life. Because in a way, he sort of had. His adoptive mother had basically been composed of rhythm, and she’d taught him everything she’d known.

  Dahlia squealed and a few of the men in the bar whistled, cheering Laz on. He spun her out, drew her in, turned her around, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him. She laughed, and he caught the whiff of cherry blossoms again. He could hear her breathing heavy with excitement. He leaned over her from behind, placing his lips beside her ear. But he didn’t say anything. She could feel him there – and that was enough.

  He grinned like the demon he was and spun her back out once more. The music moved them there in that bar on a lonely street some place just outside of Boston, and they lost themselves to it as if they were the only two people remaining on Earth.

  All around them, couples drew together, men and women who’d been through wars, who’d seen death and birth and had stuck to each others’ sides for decades. They held hands, laid heads on shoulders, and let themselves feel joy.

  Chapter Forty-One

  “So… are you really afraid of this cousin
of yours?” Dahlia asked. She and Laz were leaning against his car talking. They’d been at the bar for a little over an hour now, and all in all, they seemed to have made their place amongst the clientele. No one gave them so much as a second glance any longer. They were simply there.

  Laz shrugged. It was a good question. More than anything, he felt a little overwhelmed… and admittedly irritated. It was one thing to earn enemies, it was another to inherit them. But to say he wasn’t a little afraid would be a lie. “I don’t know. I certainly don’t trust him, but I don’t know him well enough for anything else. This royalty business is pretty messy.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Dahlia, rolling her eyes. “Did you know that back in my world, my mom and dad were the equivalent of a duke and duchess? Or something like that.” She took a swig of the beer she’d ordered before they’d come outside. “Violet and I just sort of wrote the whole thing off when they died. We refused to play into the bloodline expectations. It took more than a thousand years for people to accept it, but eventually they did.”

  Laz stared at her. The woman was royalty? Literal royalty? On top of everything else? He shook his head and laughed. “You learn something new every day,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, you do,” Dahlia agreed. “Thank goodness. Life wouldn’t be much fun otherwise.”

  Speaking of learning something new. “You know, you never told me what happened at the warehouse,” Laz brooked.

  “You never asked.”

  “I’m asking now,” he said. “What was going on when I walked in?”

  Dahlia’s expression became distant. She shook her head. “I can’t be sure. But….” She squinted as she remembered. “There was a man there with eyes like yours. In fact, he looked a lot like you.”

  Lazarus was getting an idea. “Go on.”

  She took a deep breath and blew out a sigh. “There were all these robed figures. They had drawn symbols on the concrete with chalk or something. There was a circle, and in the circle was a star. And somewhere between the two, there was an Akyri.”