New Florida
Settle yourself, demon. There’s no getting out of there, so quit trying.” Aliza sighed, shoving a loose dread out of her face. Securing an all-powerful demon in a pentagram was a grand feat, the kind of thing that took noble vampire blood, earth from the Potter’s Field, salt from Lot’s wife… the rarest ingredients she’d ever gathered. But having that demon secured in that pentagram when it was located in your living room was a real pain in the keister. Really made it hard to watch her stories with all that noise and smoke.
Samael raged against the invisible barrier keeping him prisoner. “Let me out, witch. I am being summoned.”
She took a slug of cold beer and hit pause on the TV, stopping Dr. Lassiter just as he was about to revive the woman he was in love with from a coma. Poor man had no idea she was actually his long-lost sister. Damn, this was gonna be good. She glanced over at the unholy creature. “You’ve already been summoned. To here. One more word out of you and I’m going to put the lid on that aquarium.”
She and Evie had figured it was best to keep him indoors after they called him the first time outside on the porch picnic table. Too wide open out there. No need to let the rest of the coven know what she was up to. Besides, a good breeze and half the pentagram would be gone and then what would they have? No demon, that’s what. And without that demon, there was no way they were going to get that ring the vampires were after. Trouble was, the demon was getting antsy.
Inside an old hexagon aquarium Evie had once bred Chewie’s feeder goldfish in, they’d remade the calling pentagram. Evie had glued the lines of salt and earth down onto a piece of cardboard, just to be sure there was no breaking it. Then they’d lit the candle, written the name in blood, and brought the demon back to them. It was better this way, with the pentagram safe inside the glass. Popping the lid on and throwing an afghan over the whole contraption was easy enough if they needed to hide him. So far, they hadn’t had to.
Right now, he spiraled out of the twenty-five-gallon container like a tornado, all smoke and hooves and hard red eyes. Mean-looking thing. But you couldn’t expect a demon to be soft and cuddly. Not the granddaddy of the whole entire race anyway. She rubbed a pale hand over her brow.
“Look, I know you’re in charge of other things, but we need that ring. You locate that for us and we’ll set you free.” Like hell. They’d track down the ring, then as soon as they had it, they’d contain the demon permanently. She wasn’t a fool. The instant they let him go, he’d take back the ring and strip the meat from their bones.
He scowled and bared his teeth. “I told you, I can’t locate it. It’s being protected. Hidden.”
“Well, you just keep trying, then.” She hit the PLAY button and went back to Mercy Hospital.
The demon wailed in anger.
She turned up the volume. Out here in the Glades, the closest neighbors were members of her coven, and they knew better than to complain about noises they heard coming from her house. There was good reason they lived out here—privacy. Who were they going to complain to anyway? She was the one in charge, the one with the most power. Power the rest of them didn’t even know about. Like the power she’d built this coven on, which is how she’d come to be its leader. Wasn’t like the lot of them had half the skills she did in any case.
Evie came round the corner from the kitchen. “Ma, it’s loud as blazes in here.”
Aliza hit the PAUSE button again as she pointed the remote at the demon. “That thing’s acting up again.”
Evie’s shoulder jerked forward of its own accord. Ever since being released from her stone prison a week ago, she’d been twitching more and more. Aliza had tried to ignore it, hoping it would just go away, but it was happening more frequently now. Too bad Dr. Lassiter wasn’t real. He’d know how to fix it. “We should give him something to do.”
“Release me,” the demon growled.
Evie ignored the creature. “Let’s send him out to check on the shifter and the ghost.”
“I don’t have a use for them yet. I need that ring.”
Evie rolled her eyes and flopped down on the worn sofa. “You said this thing was going to make us rich.” She stuck her finger through a threadbare spot. “When does that start?” She dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling, sighing loudly.
“Patience, child. These things take—”
“Patience?” Evie’s head came up, her eyes glinting with raw emotion. Her right arm convulsed like it had been hit with a live wire. “I had enough of being patient trapped in that stone tomb. I’m done with it. I’m tired of waiting.” She jumped off the couch and paced to the other side of the room. “I want something to happen now.”
Aliza nodded, hoping to calm her daughter down. Evie had been gone for so long, having her back, alive and safe, made every day a gift. “What do you want to do?”
She stopped her pacing to study the demon. “We should send him out to do some little thing.” She took a few steps toward him. “Make sure it goes right.”
The demon snarled. “You think I am capable of failing?”
“You haven’t gotten us the ring.”
He grimaced and spun like a dervish, coming to a stop a moment later. “Ask me for what can be obtained and I shall bring it to you.”
Evie rested her fingers on her chin for a moment. “I want a house. Bigger than this one. Everything in it new and beautiful.”
His ugly face contorted. Aliza realized he was smiling. “Where would you like this house? Europe? The Caribbean? An island of your very own?”
Evie pointed out the window. “Here. Next door.”
Aliza’s heart swelled. Nothing like having your pride and joy close.
The demon snorted. “Humans.”
“That’s not all.” Evie lifted her chin. “Inside the house, I want something special waiting for me. A man.”
Shock coursed through Aliza’s blood. “Evie child.”
She turned. “Don’t look so freaked out, Ma. I’m not a kid anymore. Being trapped in stone was like prison. I have needs. And I want to take care of them.”
The demon chortled. “Tall? Dark? Dumb? At least make it sporting.”
“I want the blue-eyed half-breed.”
“Half-breed what? Fae? Varcolai?”
“Seminole. The Mohawked one who came here with the comarré and the vampires.” Evie snatched a crystal orb from the nearest bookshelf and conjured a picture of the man, holding it out to the demon. “And I want him under some sort of spell so he can’t refuse me.”
He leaned as far as he could, studying the image, then snorted. “Spells are your language, witchling, not mine. If you can’t control him, that’s of no concern to me.”
“Witchling?” Evie moved to within inches of the aquarium’s edge. Her knuckles paled from squeezing the crystal sphere. “I know enough to contain you, demon, and enough to destroy you as well.”
His red eyes glowed. “You amuse me with your threats.”
“Build me the house, hell spawn.” Her shoulder jerked. She crossed her arms. “Then bring me the man.”
He shrugged. “As you wish.” And disappeared.
Doc shot up out of the bed, his heart racing, his body strung in the halfway state between man and beast. The sheets lay in damp shreds around him, the casualty of a varcolai’s night terror.
He looked up, still trying to bring his breathing back to normal. A fully corporeal Fi sat on the dresser across from the bed. Her legs were curled beneath her, her eyes as round and worried as when she’d been stuck in the time loop, forced to repeat the night of her murder.
Murder. The word pulled a shudder through his body. He ignored the sudden urge to check his hands for blood. To wipe the imagined wetness of it from his muzzle. “Fine,” he whispered through a split upper lip and teeth too long for a human mouth.
“Is that why your claws are out and your eyes are all yellow?”
He concentrated for a moment, and the signs of his true leopard self melted into full-on human. “Just a bad dream. Sorry for chasing you out of bed.”
She shrugged. “Once you’ve been dead a few times, the self-preservation instinct kicks in automatically.” Her eyes narrowed to slits as her mouth thinned. “You’ve been having bad dreams a lot lately. Ever since you went through the smoke.”
He’d realized that a few days ago but hadn’t wanted to say it out loud. Walking through the witch’s spelled smoke might have given him the ability to shift into leopard form again, but he’d known there would be a price to pay. Anything that involved the witches did. “Naw, that smoke was cool. That movie we saw tonight really freaked me out.”
Her brows rose incredulously. “I’m a ghost, you’re a shape-shifter, you live with a cursed vampire, and a zombie movie freaked you out. Honey, I love you, but that’s a bold-faced lie. What gives?”
He dropped his head into his hands, rubbing the stubble of his shaved scalp. “I can’t stop thinking about Preacher. About that baby. That’s all.”
“Babies scare you, huh? Good to know.” She laughed, but it was soft and gentle and didn’t feel aimed at him so much as intended to soothe. Fi was good like that.
“No, it’s just… I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” A vampire child couldn’t bring anything good into this world. He stripped off the ruined top sheet and patted the space beside him. He needed the distraction of Fi’s affections to blank out the nightmare threatening the edges of his consciousness. “Come back to bed, sweetness.”
She scooted off the dresser but didn’t come any closer. Damn, she meant business. “Suit yourself, but you really need to tell Mal about what you saw. You know Preacher’s got hard feelings for him. Mal deserves to know about anything new going on in that crazy daywalker’s life.”
“I will. Promise. First good chance I get.” Which hadn’t happened yet, and with the way Mal’s moods went, might not happen for another year or so. Truth was, Doc didn’t think Mal knowing Preacher had fathered a kid was such a good idea. No one knowing was a better idea. Hell, Doc was sorry he knew.
“I’m serious.” Her eyes strayed from his face down his bare chest and lower. She flipped a length of chestnut hair over one shoulder as the tip of her tongue wet her lips. She reached the end of the bed. “You’re not playing fair.”
He stretched, showing off the muscles in his arms and chest. He ached for her. For the unconditional way she gave herself to him. It was the greatest luxury in his life. One he’d kill to protect. “I never play fair. That’s part of my charm.”
She crossed her arms and shook her head. “Charm isn’t going to protect you if Mal finds out you’re keeping a secret like this. You need to tell him.”
“I will. Soon.”
“Promise?”
Doc crossed his fingers behind his hip, hating himself for doing it. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Fi frowned. “Don’t say that. That’s the last thing either of us wants to come true.”
He held his hands out to her. “C’mon, baby. Nothing’s gonna happen to me. I’m a big bad leopard again. C’mere and let me show you.” He growled softly from deep in his chest. Silently he wished away the words he’d spoken. Hope to die. Why had he even put that thought out into the universe?
“Speaking of big bad leopards, are you going to go back to Sinjin now? See if he’ll reinstate you into the pride?”
“No. Never. He threw me out when I needed the pride’s help and support the most. That man is dead to me.” He patted the bed again and gave her the most wicked look he could manage, then stroked a finger down the side of his goatee. “Now come here, woman, or I’ll come get you myself and I really don’t think you want that.”
She shrieked, then laughed as she jumped into bed beside him. “You have the devil in you.”
Happily distracted, he pulled her beneath him and sank into her warmth, nipping her throat lightly. “And now, so do you.”
“You the one who found her?” The officer handed Creek his license back and gave him a hard once-over. “You’re a ways off the reservation, aren’t you?”
He really needed to get his mother’s address off his license. “Yes, I found her.” Creek ignored the officer’s second question as he blew out a slow breath and tried to erase the mental image of the girl dying in his arms and how at first glance, he’d thought she was Chrysabelle. How that had sucked the breath out of him. Charged him with a rage he hadn’t felt since he’d pulled his father off his sister.
But the girl he’d found wasn’t Chrysabelle. She wasn’t even a real comarré. And the puncture wounds on her neck were meant to look like the work of a vampire, but he had his doubts. A vampire wouldn’t have had any reason to carve the girl up like that. Or leave that much blood behind.
“I understand they already have your DNA and prints.”
It was no secret he had a record. “Yes.” He wiped his hands down his jeans again, but they were stained with blood. Her blood.
The officer pulled out an e-tablet and stylus. “Tell me what happened—start from the beginning.”
“I was on my way home, and when I passed this alley, I heard her moaning.” Actually, he’d been tracking a fringe vamp that had been going after street people. The smell of blood had drawn the fringe into the alley.
“On your way home? Your license says you live on tribe land.” The officer’s eyes narrowed.
“I used to. That’s my mother’s place. I live down near Pineda.”
“We’ll need to verify that. And you need to get your license updated.”
“Will do.” Better tell Argent, his Kubai Mata sector chief, the cops were going to be calling. Good thing the KM had a system in place for that kind of stuff, but then what didn’t the KM have covered? They hadn’t stayed a secret society for so many years by being unprepared.
“What happened after you heard her moaning?”
He’d staked the fringe and cleaned up the ashes as quickly as he could. “I saw her lying there. Looked like she’d been run through a shredder. I was surprised she was still alive.” He shifted, blew out a breath. “I yelled for help, but no one came.” He hadn’t yelled for help because he knew there was none. Plus the smell of blood had already drawn new fringe. “I held her. She died in my arms.” At that point, the fringe had been curious, but not a threat since the girl was no longer a viable meal.
“And that’s how you got her blood all over you?”
“Yes.” They’d searched him for weapons. Since Argent had yet to show with his replacement crossbow, all they’d found on him was a titanium stake and his halm, which they’d thought was just a length of pipe. Most people in Little Havana carried a lot more than that.
“Then what?”
“I went into that bodega and they called nine-one-one. The rest you know.”
“You touch or move anything else around the scene? We gonna find your prints on anything you want to tell us about now?”
“No, I know better than that.” Maybe a street person had seen the gold and stripped her flesh trying to harvest it.
“What were you doing in this part of town?”
There was no good reason to be in Little Havana unless you lived here. Clearly the cop was trying to trip him up. “I told you, passing through on my way home.” Half a dozen new fringe lingered in the gathering crowd like circling sharks. They came and went, sniffing around, figuring out the blood wasn’t from a live source and disappearing again.
“Do you know the victim? Ever seen her around here before?” Red and blue LED police lights illuminated the sheet now covering her.
“Never seen her before.” But he knew what she was. The brunette roots of the platinum hair and simple signum, what was left of them, anyway, pegged her as one of Dominic’s fake comarré. One of many things the officer probably had no clue about. Another was that the vampires in the crowd had now doubled in number. Things were getting ugly in this city. He’d seen more othernaturals openly mingling with humans than ever before. Any day now, humans were going to stop pretending they weren’t seeing things and figure out the world around them had become a very different place. The night of Halloween would be the end of the innocence if it didn’t happen before that.
Another officer ushered a vaguely familiar woman under the crime scene tape and through the milling forensics team. A man, clearly her bodyguard, judging by the loosely concealed piece, dark suit with matching shades, and general protection vibe, accompanied her. Wolf-shifter by the looks of him. Creek inhaled. Too many othernaturals in the crowd to make a positive ID.
The officer escorted her to the body and pulled the sheet back enough to uncover the dead girl’s face. The woman went pale beneath her sleek, brunette bob and heavily lined eyes. Her mouth opened in shock, then she snapped it closed, swallowed as she regained her composure, and nodded. Pain bracketed her eyes. She said something normal human ears wouldn’t have heard from this distance. “That’s her.”
Creek tipped his head toward the woman. “Who is that?”
The officer looked up from moving his stylus across his e-tablet screen. “The mayor. Delores Diaz-White. Don’t you watch TV?”
“Don’t own one.” Ugly didn’t begin to describe what was about to go down in this city. Creek cursed softly.
“You can say that again.” The officer’s head went back down to focus on his notes. “Don’t leave town. Chances are a hundred percent we’re going to need you again for questioning.”
Creek jerked his head in response, but his eyes were on the mayor. She spoke to the officer who’d led her to the body, her gun-toting muscle scanning the crowd like he expected trouble. Creek had planned to head out again on patrol, but stopping by Seven to let Dominic know about his comarré might not be a bad idea. Maybe the anathema could give him a heads-up on who might have had a beef with the girl. An angry customer, maybe, or a heavy-handed boyfriend.
The mayor’s bodyguard stopped his constant scanning and faced Creek. Because of the man’s dark shades, Creek couldn’t tell if the shifter was looking at him, the cop, or someone in the crowd behind them.
The shifter turned, leaned toward the mayor, and whispered something too soft for Creek to catch. She nodded. Her next words to the cop at her side were easy enough to make out. “I’d like to speak to the man who found her.”
Creek followed the officer over. Sorrow filled the mayor’s large brown eyes, but he could imagine that when she smiled, she was beautiful. “Madam Mayor, I’m Thomas Creek.”
She reached to shake his hand, then stopped when he showed her the bloodstains covering them. Her gaze skipped back to the covered form of her daughter about ten feet away. “I understand you found her. Did she say anything before she…?”
“No, ma’am. She was too far gone.” The pain on her face made him ache for her. He could imagine what it would have felt like to lose his sister, Una, if he hadn’t stopped his father in time. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Her mouth twitched, too heavy to smile. “I’m sure you know Julia and I were estranged.”
The papers had made certain everyone knew during the last election, but the mayor had survived for another term. “I’m sure the PCPD will do everything they can to find out who did this.”
Fresh tears filled the mayor’s eyes. She looked at the officers swirling around them, blinked, and nodded. “I’m sure they’ll do their best. They keep asking me about the gold marks on her. I don’t know why she would tattoo herself that way.”
Creek hesitated. The covenant had been broken for over a month. The mayor must have some idea of the chaos erupting in the city, the strange creatures walking among the human citizens. There was no ignoring the news reports. Or the fact that the gargoyles on city hall had taken to evening flights. She had to know.
“What do you know?” The bodyguard’s stern voice snapped him back to the moment.
Creek looked around. “I would be willing to talk to you, but not here.”
The mayor’s brow unfurrowed. “Tomorrow, then, first thing. My office. Eight a.m.”
Creek nodded. “I’ll be there.”
He started to slip away, but the bodyguard blocked his path. “You don’t show and I’ll hunt you down, understand?” He smiled, showing larger-than-human teeth. “I’m very good at hunting.”
Creek squared his shoulders and wished he could see through the guy’s shades. “Most wolves are.”
The bodyguard’s jaw went slack. Without a backward glance, Creek disappeared into the crowd and away from the scene. Normally, his ratty jeans and hoodie made a great disguise for blending in, but not with bloodstains covering them. Maybe he’d grab a shower, then take another crack at seeing Chrysabelle. She had to let him in sometime, right?
A block away and the little hairs on the back of his neck went up. A heavy sense of foreboding pressed down on him, along with the stench of brimstone and putrid flesh. His first thought was Nothos. Since bringing Chrysabelle back from Corvinestri he’d run into two, probably left behind by Tatiana’s hasty departure. With the blood scent he was leaving, they could probably track him with their eyes closed.
He kept his senses open as he maintained his pace. No sound of footsteps. The weight increased and the KM brands on his back began to itch. If this was Nothos, it was a new breed.
Water pooled in his mouth as nausea threatened to bring his dinner up. He took the next right, ducked into an alley, and crouched behind a Dumpster. A second later, his halm was out and fully extended, ready to take down whatever stalked him.
Seconds flowed into minutes and nothing happened. The pressure and smell stayed constant. His stalker must be at the mouth of the alley, waiting for him to make the first move.
Quietly, he grabbed a discarded beer bottle and pitched it toward the back of the alley. Something shot past, a ripple of heat over asphalt on a summer day.
He lunged, plunging the halm through the center of the thing, only to be thrown back against the wall. A rib cracked, but he held onto his weapon. The shimmer of movement turned toward him and solidified into a creature that Creek had only ever seen before in drawings. Castus Sanguis. The ancient ones.
Callous red eyes, hands with scythe claws, and skin that oozed foul fluid. The Castus was everything he’d been described as, but seeing him in person was infinitely worse.
Fear, something that not even the Nothos made him feel, stuck its cold hand into Creek’s chest and squeezed. The brightest KM minds had yet to come up with a way to destroy the Castus. They were reportedly undefeatable.
The demon’s hooves scraped the ground as he charged. Creek feinted, rolling beneath the outstretched arms and stabbing his halm through the demon’s side as he came up. The creature howled, seemingly more out of anger than pain.
“You dare strike me, mortal?” The demon struck out again, and again Creek escaped the blow within a hairsbreadth.
He didn’t bother answering. Instead he took aim and let the halm fly straight toward the heart of the beast.
The demon swatted the titanium quarterstaff away. It clattered to the ground far beyond Creek’s reach. Behind him, the alley went a few more feet, then ended in a tall building without windows or fire escapes. He was trapped in a concrete canyon.
With a blood-freezing laugh, the demon stalked forward. “Too bad the witchling wants you alive. Maybe just a taste…”
A blur of red filled Creek’s vision, knocking him to the ground. Acid pain tore through his shoulder. Fangs hit bone, tore flesh, snapped sinew. Blood gushed over his body, soaking his clothes. Then heat. And light. And the keening wail of a creature in pain.
Creek opened his eyes, forcing himself to his feet. His arm hung limp. The Castus staggered backward, his body a flickering wick of fire. He clawed at his maw and belly where the flames concentrated. His arm shot out, his hooked finger pointing. “Kubai Mata,” he snarled.
“Damn straight,” Creek answered. He took a step toward his halm. Maybe he could finish this demon off after all. His hand stretched toward his weapon. The earth tilted, throwing him to the ground again. His vision tunneled down to nothing, and the press of asphalt faded as his body went numb.