Pride and Poltergeists

  I let the anger leach out of me as I gasped. “Meg!” I shouted. Striding to the door, I pounded on it, and the heat of the wards made the wood tremble. “Meg, get your ass in here!”

  Ten seconds passed before I heard footsteps and whispering. The door opened without a sound, and suddenly, Meg’s slight, white figure was standing before me, smiling. One hand was against the wall, the other resting softly on her hip, a carefully calculated pose. Antoine stood behind her, frowning passively in his pointed slippers.

  “Finished already?” she asked, raising a brow. Her smile curdled.

  “Just get him out of here,” I said, half wondering if my delirious mind would start up again, proclaiming it was Hades, himself.

  Meg gave me a once-over, observing the thin sheen of blood on my skin, along with the dark purple splotches on my clothes. “Did you at least have fun?”

  “Fuck you.”

  She seemed amused by that. “Antoine,” she said, while staring at me, “if you would.”

  Her manservant pushed past me, hefting the choking Jax into his arms. For a moment, I thought I’d crushed his windpipe—but as he was carried past me, he had enough breath to tell me to go fuck myself.

  Meg made a show of waiting until Antoine was well out of earshot. “I must admit, I’m rather confused.” She pricked her lip with a fang and put her finger to the blood, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger. “I thought you’d … enjoy his company.” She glanced at the blood stains in the corner of the room. “I thought you’d make more of it than you actually did.”

  “Not in the mood,” I seethed, standing stock-still in the center of the room and staring at her lips and the blood now smeared across her chin. It looked like a wine stain against her flawless porcelain skin …

  “Oh?” Meg replied, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe, a cheeky grin on her face. Like she was daring me to try and get past her. “I wasn’t aware vengeance needed a particular mood to express it.”

  I felt my eyes drifting to the blood again and looked at the wall instead. “Yeah, well. You learn something new every day.”

  “Hmm.” She kicked herself off the frame and sauntered towards me with long, deliberate steps. Her hips swayed, encased in her tight, black pants, guiding me to her stomach, the slightest suggestion of her breasts beneath her billowing blouse … I shook my head, getting angry with myself that I was even aware of her body. I shouldn’t have been. It made no sense that I was. Not after all the hatred I harbored for her.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. She was right in front of me now, staring at me with eyes of liquid black, like the night, distilled into nefarious shadows. I stared right back at her, at those deep pools of black ink.

  “Um …” I answered stupidly. She smelled like cinnamon, rust, fire, and motor oil.

  “I have another gift for you,” she said, running a finger down my chest, lingering in spots of Jax’s blood and drawing circles in it. “I hope you like this one better.” Spreading her hand flat against me, she turned back to the door, softly calling, “Dulcie.”

  My heart stopped, and she heard it, grinning. For another moment, the door was empty, and I stared blankly out at the cold hallway. I briefly thought Meg was fucking with me.

  And then …

  Dulcie. She was standing tall even though she was small. At first, she was hesitant, and her eyes were downcast as she entered the room.

  “Yes, Mother?” she asked as she faced Meg.

  I felt like I’d been sucker-punched in the gut. Mother? Fucking hell, what did she do to you? Everything about her was wrong. Her hair was curled, her eyes were the wrong shade of green, her wings weren’t out of her control, and she wasn’t telling anyone to go fuck themselves … She also wasn’t staring at Meg, or at me, in the face, or demanding to know what was going on. She was quiet, polite, docile. Broken. I stared at her, the long, blond hair, the lithe, pale frame in that stupid, fucking dress …

  “Dulcie,” said Meg. “You remember Knight, don’t you, Princess?”

  “Knight,” Dulcie echoed, with an unchanged expression as she glanced up at me. “I do.” Her eyes narrowed. “He murdered Father. Didn’t he?”

  Meg allowed her smile to turn somber. “Yes, my darling. He did.” She turned back to me, toying with my shirt. Dragging her nail down the sleeves, she ripped them off, casually shredding it to ribbons until I was shirtless. My chest was still coated in sweat and blood.

  Why aren’t I stopping her? I thought to myself, panic overtaking me. Why aren’t I pushing her away, or even trying to fight her?

  My hand moved on its own, landing on her shoulder and squeezing the frozen flesh beneath. She touched it gently.

  “Sebastian, do you enjoy him?” Meg asked Dulcie from over her shoulder. Meg’s eyes never left mine, and that odd smile continued to dance over her mouth.

  Dulcie nodded, but she appeared confused. “I guess.” Turning to the side, she suddenly whispered something angrily. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop!”

  “What was that?” Meg asked as she frowned and moved her gaze back to Dulcie. Now was my chance to throw her eyes away from me, but I didn’t. I just continued to stand there, immobilized. As if I were suddenly paralyzed.

  “What does he lack, my dear?” Meg turned back and looked at me directly, as if in heated anticipation for Dulcie’s response.

  “Technique,” Dulcie answered, and I felt a twinge of raw jealousy combined with doleful pain that nearly splintered me.

  Meg nodded. “We can remedy that.” She turned to look at me, but my eyes were fastened on Dulcie. I was seeking the slightest glimmer of hope, some trace that could prove the real Dulcie was still inside there somewhere, and that this witch hadn’t completely conquered her soul.

  Meg gripped me by the head and stared straight into my eyes. Her irises shifted, turning gold, grey, and silver until they finally faded back to abysmal black. And I just melted. Immediately, I felt my bones turning to fire and my lungs frosting over, every part of me was instantly and ravenously hungry for …

  For her. With a hazy realization, the barest scrapings of consciousness in a bad dream, I tried to step back, but my body refused to move. My feet weren’t obeying me, they couldn’t run and I couldn’t scream or do anything that might have gotten me away from her before …

  Meg pressed her lips onto my throat. A hot stream of blood spurted between her teeth as she nipped my skin, tasting it, testing me. I reached up to touch the blood, grabbing her by the hair and wrenching her head back, using everything I had to drag her off me—

  But I released my hand a second or so later. She was so soft, so shiny, so perfectly black … I caressed her. I ran my fingers through her hair, I smelled it. I kissed the top of her head, and I dragged her up to kiss her cheek, her lips, and her throat.

  What the fuck am I doing! I railed at myself. But I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t directing my own body and there was nothing I could do to resist Meg’s obscene glamour—it was a power I’d never witnessed in another creature before.

  Meg pulled back, gasping. “Take notes, darling,” she said to Dulcie. “Sebastian is going to need them.”

  “N … no!” I protested, barely loud enough for me to hear. Meg looked at me, biting her lip, and blinking slowly. She ran her nails down the side of my face, drawing more blood, and leaned in to lap it up like a fucking dog.

  Don’t let her do this, I thought, but that part of me was quickly morphing into another voice, a different person, someone who couldn’t possibly understand how good this actually felt …

  Dulcie’s head tilted left and she squinted, almost like she was trying to close her eyes but couldn’t quite do it. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but her expression couldn’t explain them. Her face was curious, but her eyes were broken and empty, if that were possible.

  “I won’t be your fucking puppet,” I spat out at Meg in a scathing tone. While trying to drag myself away from her influence, I could barely manage a whisper. M
ore like a whine, the numbed moanings of a ghost: wordless and desperate.

  Meg laughed as she pushed me onto the bed, in a long and haunting sound. “You already are.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sam

  For the record, I didn’t like relying on a demon either.

  “His name is Dagan, and you’ll probably want to shoot him,” I said. “I can’t stress enough how important it is that you don’t.” Demons didn’t like being shot, especially by humans.

  “Okay,” Casey said slowly. “What exactly are we in for?”

  We stood in the back parking lot of a squat, black building with a single neon red sign over its door that read: Pain. The “Painful Pleasure Park,” as its owner liked to call it, was sandwiched between an empty lot full of thrumming cicadas and another empty lot covered in busted concrete.

  “A sadistic, narcissistic, and outrageously unhelpful demon with an ego the size of Texas,” I said. Dagan made Bram look like a saint. “Tread carefully. He really likes hurting people. It’s … kind of his thing.”

  “He hurts you and he’s dead,” Casey said with authority as he stared at me, his expression warning me not to argue with him. Not that I intended to. Not at all! My heart was in the midst of releasing butterflies and rainbows and I struggled to keep the smile off my lips. There was something about a protective man.

  “He won’t hurt me,” I said, although I didn’t fully believe my own words. “Dulcie and I have worked with Dagan a few times in the past. He knows it’s best to keep on my good side so I don’t bust his ass for whatever goes on behind those closed doors.”

  “He’s not stupid. He must realize the ANC is in trouble,” Casey pointed out.

  Yeah, good point, but I reserved comment and just shrugged. I faced the bigger problem. “The other thing is that I should … probably go in alone.”

  “Alone?” Casey barked at me. “There’s no way!” His expression told me he thought it was a stupid idea, end of story.

  “It’s going to be hard enough to get Dagan to talk to me,” I started. “But if I’ve got a crew of human agents with me, he’s going to laugh in all of our faces.” Not pretty, but it was the truth. “I’m less than convinced that he’ll be willing to help me as it is.” Demons weren’t exactly forthcoming in general as a species. And this one, in particular, loved beating around the bush and speaking in riddles.

  I thought there might be an innuendo in there somewhere, but decided it was probably best not to worry about it.

  “I don’t want you going in alone,” Casey insisted.

  “I’ll go with you.” Rowena stepped forward, her arms crossed, the magic in her skin making her restless. She was fighting the urge to tap her foot, drumming her fingers against her arm. Still as stone, tidal waves of energy were pulsing inside of her, begging her to be reckless.

  “Okay,” I said. She could handle herself. Yeah, Dagan was a demon, but Rowena was a hell of a lot scarier. Whatever she was.

  “Be careful,” said Casey, frowning at both of us, but looking relieved that I wasn’t going in alone. “Don’t be a hero.”

  I snorted. It was a bit late to try to be anything else. Casey scowled at me and I waved him off.

  “We’ll be careful,” I said. “Promise.”

  Rowena and I stepped up to the illustrious side door, an average-looking thing of red metal with a neon sign blinking benignly above it. I focused on its incessant buzz, inhaling until my lungs began to hurt. I was a hundred yards out of my element. Interrogation was always Dulcie’s game, never mine. My time in the field was limited, almost nonexistent. My work involved books, spell theory and arcana craft, magic and chemistry. Not this. Not guns and demons and sex clubs in the middle of the freaking night.

  But Dulcie wasn’t here and I was. And like it or not, I had to interview a demon.

  This is going to go sideways fast, I thought as I shouldered the door open.

  Pain wasn’t a very pretty place. Plush black carpet, which must have been new because it lacked the stains of the trade, and there were brand new leather benches in front of every door. Two on either side were ready for a busy night, when Dagan’s patrons would patiently have to wait their turn. The walls were a deep, unsettling red, the kind that turns orange if you blink too much, and adorned with detailed charcoal renderings of naked people doing some Grade-A nasties. All of them were women, arching their backs, eyes half-closed, mouths gaping open, bleeding from one wound or other, bruised and squished and bitten. One of them had sharp, metal clamps attached to her nipples and her, um …

  Four black marble doors, two on either side of the hallway, led to various “pleasure chambers” that were well supplied with unpleasant toys. Moans and raucous laughter escaped from beneath them, muffled and clear all at once, not to mention the screaming, so much screaming. But I guessed that was the point of this torture palace.

  Dagan’s office was located at the end of the hallway, a door just as black and unforgiving as the rest of them—but this one was slightly ajar. The sounds coming from within were more than a little disturbing. Moans, sure, but so many of them, a hive mind with a thousand mouths groaning. And a metallic clinking, something that sounded like chains. And definitely turned out to be chains.

  Rowena and I looked at each other and I shrugged. She stepped forward and pushed open the door with one hand, peering inside. She didn’t appear nervous, not in the least. I wished I could say the same for myself.

  Then she stiffened. “Oh,” she said. “That’s interesting.” She looked back at me with a dubious expression. “After you?”

  She pushed the door all the way open and we stepped inside. I nearly collapsed, my face turning into a grimace as I examined the shadows writhing on the ground. “Interesting” wasn’t the word I would have chosen for what was going on in front of us.

  What did we have here? Dagan, naked, in a pile of other people, who were also all naked. Stiff dicks and flopping boobs and lots of blood and gags as well as a plethora of other unnamable toys, the room fairly vibrated with their moans. They made the ground, as well as each other, tremble, like the building itself were achieving an orgasm.

  “Um …” I cleared my throat, still trying to comprehend that I was standing there, in Dagan’s club, and watching him have sex with a lot of people at once. “Dagan?”

  Dagan’s head appeared from under the legs of a dark-skinned shapeshifter. His tongue lolling, he was smiling with the drunken euphoria of an addict savoring his last fix. The woman glared at me.

  “Samantha,” he said, visibly surprised but not exactly displeased to see me. “I hadn’t thought I’d see you again.”

  Dagan had dark hair and his skin was pale as the dead. He was ripped to high hell, fire and brimstone flowing through his veins like hot water, along with an excess of whatever chemical makes you insatiably horny. He was a direct source of the crooked, dealing mostly in pain and sex. None of his actions were inherently illegal, but his establishment attracted a less than reputable crowd. Bad guys came through here all the time seeking angry, cathartic sex. When Dagan felt charitable, he told us where they were, and what they were up to, and which dominatrixes they preferred. His smile was disarming in a rather sociopathic, I-promise-I’m-not-going-to-kill-you sort of way. He had the look of a man who always kept a gun in his pocket and a dick as hard as frozen lead. He was a piece of work, to say the very least, but also useful. Sometimes.

  However, he was utterly incapable of controlling himself. “Care to join us?” he asked, his tongue snaking out over his lips. I wanted to bend over and hurl right there.

  “Absolutely not,” I said, my mouth dropping open with disgust at the very thought.

  “Pity,” he said with little interest. “What about your friend?”

  Rowena didn’t dignify him with a response. The air turned thin as the magic in her skin crackled and burnt. Maybe her body was requesting permission to turn Dagan into a pile of smoking bones. She took a deep breath and grew calm a moment lat
er.

  “We need your help,” I said to Dagan, trying to sound wearily irritable. Dulcie always said that’s what worked best with him—being as bitchy as possible, especially if you were asking for a favor. My voice trembled under my tongue, which I hoped to hell sounded like thinly veiled rage.

  “Ah,” Dagan said, gyrating against the backside of a young elf. “This is about your demolished workplace, I assume?”

  Well, yeah. I guessed it was probably all over the news by now, but it still unnerved me that he knew. “It’s mostly about Dulcie,” I managed, looking at the wall. Red wooden panels were hung with pictures and permits, along with Dagan’s favorite “marital aids”: iron clamps, vibrators, ball gags, and knives, some of which still had the last victims’ blood on them…

  “Dulcie? Very well,” Dagan responded, sinking his teeth into the shapeshifter’s leg. “Though I’m not sure how you think I can help you. I may be many things, but a necromancer isn’t one of them.” Dagan dragged his tongue across the shapeshifter’s wound, lapping up the blood like a thirsty dog—and in a manner of speaking, he was. I tried not to gag.

  “Dulcie isn’t dead,” I said.

  Blood leaked out around Dagan’s lips, pouring down onto the woman’s skin in thick, black tendrils. She moaned. So did everybody else, but presumably for different reasons. Hopefully, they hadn’t melded their minds for this—a shared consciousness would increase their … ugh, ecstasy, for lack of a less disgusting word, tenfold, but it would also entangle their memories. The longer they stayed under, the harder it would become to disentangle themselves. Physically and mentally, but mostly physically, they tied themselves together with chains and ropes as well as something that looked like strawberry licorice. The ligations were at their ankles, their wrists, their throats, and their testicles …

  “Sam,” Rowena whispered, and I realized I was gawking before I swallowed and coughed.

  “Dulcie is missing and I need you to help me find her,” I announced.