Bad Blood (40 page)

C
reek’s front pocket started to vibrate just as Velimai flew into the room where the group was gathered watching the news from around the world. Her hands were moving too fast for him to even try to guess what she was saying. He got up and went down the hall to answer his phone. He didn’t need to check the screen to know it was Argent.

“Creek,” he answered.

“Where the hell are you?” Argent replied.

“I’m with the mayor.”

“And where is that?”

“At the comarré’s.”

The sector chief went quiet for a second. “Are you any closer to recovering the item?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Because I don’t have a better one to give you.” Something was going on in the other room. The best he could make out was that the pressure sensors had lit up a warning for the rear of the property.

“If you’re not any closer to the item and the mayor is
protected, you need to be in the city. We have reports of a lesser demon running through the streets. Get over there and kill it.”

“I don’t know if I should—”

“Of course you should. It’s your job.”

“I was going to say I don’t know if I should leave the mayor.”

“The comarré can protect her. Now go. That’s an order, not a request. The demon’s location has been forwarded to your phone.”

The line went dead before Creek could explain Chrysabelle wasn’t here. Maybe it was better Argent didn’t know. The less Creek was on the hook for her and her plans for the ring, the better. The KM were not going to be happy when he had to tell them she’d melted it down and stitched it into her skin.

As he shoved the phone back into his pocket, the doorbell rang. Maybe it was whoever had set off the pressure sensors. Or maybe Mal and Chrysabelle were back.

He walked toward the living room and rounded the corner. John, Luke, and Doc made an impenetrable wall in front of the open door. Fi and the mayor were behind them, and through the legs of the shifters, he could see Damian’s white trousers and Velimai’s silky gray pants.

“You can’t cross the threshold, so don’t even try,” Damian snarled.

Creek came up beside Doc. A petite blonde vampire stood in the open door. “Hear me out,” she said.

“Who are you?” Creek asked. She had the scent of nobility about her.

“She’s Daciana,” Damian answered. “House of Tepes.
Wife to Laurent, the vampire who kidnapped Saraphina, the comarré who was with me.”

“What do you want?” Creek asked her.

“To die, I’m guessing,” Fi said. Velimai nodded in agreement.

“Please,” Daciana said. “I seek asylum.”

Fi snickered. “More like you should be in one.”

“Are you working for Tatiana?” Damian asked.

Fear washed over Daciana’s face. “No, you must believe me. My husband was, but he didn’t do as she asked and she killed him. I barely escaped with my life. I had nowhere else to turn.”

“There are a thousand places in the world you could have disappeared to.” Damian’s hand inched toward his sacre. “Why here?”

“To help. I have information.” Daciana swallowed and looked behind her like she thought someone might be there. “Tatiana is… horrible. She needs to be stopped.”

One of the Havoc boys snorted.

“Hey,” Creek said to get their attention. The group turned to look at him. “This isn’t my house, so I’m not making the decision, but I can tell you Chrysabelle wouldn’t let her in. Now I have KM business to attend to in the city. Demon on the loose.”

The mayor paled but said nothing. Creek brushed past Daciana, who stared with big, pleading eyes. Like that was going to change his mind. Behind him, the group called out a few questions. “Gotta go. Duty calls,” he answered back.

He climbed onto his Harley, cranked the engine, and notched the kickstand back. This was what he’d been trained for, what the KM had gotten his prison sentence
commuted for. Part of him was looking forward to the fight. Another part of him hoped he won and won fast, because if this demon was anything like the Castus he’d fought earlier, it wasn’t going to be any kind of fun.

The gate opened and he roared through, startling a cloud of blackbirds sitting in the trees. He motored off Mephisto Island and went straight toward the coordinates Argent had sent. The streets were deserted, as they should be. He hit the city hall block and pulled over to check the address again. Gargoyles swooped overhead, but they didn’t seem to be causing any trouble.

The screen showed he was within blocks of the demon. He unholstered his crossbow and rested it between the handlebars, notching it into a fitting he’d machined to mount the weapon should he need it while driving. The wind shifted and sulfur scraped his nostrils with the rotten egg stench of demon. He was close all right.

Heading the bike back out, he took the next turn. Two blocks away, the demon’s back came into view. Being this near to such a foul monster made the brands on Creek’s body throb like some kind of demon-detection device. The blue-black creature stood nearly four stories, its tail smashing out car and shop windows as it swished back and forth. Something dark flew overhead, but Creek didn’t look up. He had no time for gargoyles. The demon peered into buildings, periodically punching its fist through a wall or window and digging in up to its shoulder. Probably looking for a mortal snack, Creek guessed.

Fortunately, most of the buildings were vacant. It was almost nine. The workers had been gone for hours. The whole business district was empty, the streetlights casting shadows on nothing. Creek raised his crossbow toward
the beast. This angle wasn’t going to work. He needed to be higher up. Heart level. He studied the buildings available to him, trying to determine which one would give him the best access.

Suddenly the creature reared its head back and unleashed a horrible roar. Creek parked the bike and yanked the crossbow free as he jumped off and ducked into the nearest doorway. The parking garage across the street would make a great bunker and give him the height he needed.

The demon seemed occupied with something. What exactly, Creek couldn’t tell, but he used the distraction for cover and ran to the parking garage. He found the stairs and went three stories up, coming out on the street side. Tucking himself behind a concrete pylon, he leveled his bow. The stench threatened to bring up the mayor’s
arroz con pollo
. The demon stood at a slight angle, hunched over something. There was no way for Creek to hit it properly. He’d have to wait until the demon moved.

Through the bow’s site, his field of vision was a small circle of blue-black flesh. Then he heard a woman’s voice. An angry woman’s voice.

“Eat me and I will haunt you for the rest of your unnatural life.”

The demon laughed.

Ducking and running, Creek got a couple pylons ahead of the beast, fixed his position, and took another look. From the new vantage point, he could see more of the creature’s front and the woman he held captive in his car-sized hands. She wore some kind of wig of black feathers. So much for the mayor canceling all Halloween events and setting a curfew.

“Go ahead and try, demon,” the woman taunted. “I’ll tear you apart from the inside.”

Not only was she bad at following directions, but she was crazy, too. Great. Creek lifted the bow and took aim. The demon snarled and lifted the woman toward his mouth. Creek released the first bolt.

It thunked home in the demon’s eye. Yowling, the creature dropped one hand from the woman to claw at its face, lifting its head and giving Creek perfect access to its heart. He planted the second bolt dead on target.

Hissing like a wet cat, the thing released the woman. She hit the ground hard and didn’t move. The demon went down next, taking off the corner of the First Florida Federal Bank. As it writhed on the ground, Creek ran for the stairs. Any second now, the demon would probably go up in flames. He had to get the woman out of danger, if she weren’t already dead.

He burst out of the parking garage, his crossbow already tucked away, and ran toward her. Keeping watch on the convulsing demon, he scooped her up and made tracks down the side street and out of the path of demon shrapnel.

Just past the crosswalk, the demon blew. Chunks of burning flesh and ribbons of acid-hot blood launched into the air. Creek pulled up beneath an awning, shielding the woman with his body, and hunkered down to ride out the downpour.

When the last piece fell—a toe by the looks of it—Creek unhinged and stood, at last taking a good look at the woman he’d rescued.

Her head lolled back over his arm. The feather wig stayed put. He walked out from beneath the shadow of the
awning and into the light of the streetlamp. She wasn’t wearing a costume. The feathers were her hair. An icy memory swept through him, a snippet of a fairy tale his grandmother used to tell him when he was a little boy about a woman whose sorrow turned her into a raven, gave her the power to gather souls because she had none. That story had always fascinated and terrified him.

He snorted at his own foolishness. Samhain approached and its magic had started to affect him. He shook it off and chalked up the feather hair to the night’s power. That’s all it was. Anything was possible tonight. He kneeled with the woman in his arms, setting her gently on the sidewalk so he could feel for a pulse. There was none.

Sitting back on his heels, he sighed. Not the way he’d wanted this to go. “Sorry,” he muttered. What a beauty she’d been. Seminole maybe, with that pretty olive skin. Around her neck, she wore a tiny beaked skull on a silver chain. Her vest of textured black leather exposed a few inches of taut belly above her low slung dark jeans. Maybe she had ID in her pocket. He leaned forward to check.

The woman’s body seemed to move.

He jerked back, then exhaled. She wasn’t dead after all. He reached to check her pulse again and her body exploded into a cloud of cawing, squawking ravens. He fell back on his hands, then shifted to whip out his halm.

Feathers floated down like black snow, and the birds swarmed into a column in the middle of the street. Then somehow, as he watched, the woman who’d died in his arms walked out of the column and the ravens were gone.

The little boy who’d trembled at his grandmother’s story urged him to run, but Creek wasn’t eight anymore. He shoved to his feet, his halm at the ready.

She stepped onto the sidewalk but didn’t come any closer. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

Her eyes were as black as her hair. As black as a raven’s wing. She laughed, a dark, cawing sound that wasn’t as unpleasant as he’d expected. “You saved me.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Probably the wisest decision anyway, considering what she’d just done. “I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure you were dead.”

She tipped her head, peering at him. “I didn’t mean from the demon. I meant from the swamp witch.”

“I don’t follow.”

She tipped her head to the other side. “You set me free when you burned down her house.” She blinked slowly. “What is your name?”

“Creek.”

“I am Yahla.”

But he’d known that since he was eight.

Tucking her hands beneath her thighs, Chrysabelle forced herself to be still in the small sitting room on the second floor of Loudreux’s house. She leaned back against the sofa, tried to relax. It had taken the other members of the elektos half an hour to arrive after being summoned; now Khell’s swearing in dragged on in the office below. It
had
to come to an end soon. She checked a small crystal clock on the coffee table. Only nine minutes had passed since Khell and the elektos had entered the office and locked the door behind them, but each tick of the second hand stretched like an hour, and since she was unfamiliar with the ceremony, she had no way of judging how soon it would end.

Mortalis stood beside Mal with his back to the sitting room door. She glanced at him, then sighed. Mal raised a brow at her, his lanky form braced against the wall. The threat of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. She exhaled a short, quick breath out her nose and returned her attention to the clock.

So glad her impatience amused Mal. He had to understand how desperately she wanted that ring in her hands and to return home. It would be midnight in a little under three hours. She wasn’t sure what that meant for Paradise City, but if the magic had been leaking through before sunset, things could only be getting worse.

Mal closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “Watching that clock isn’t going to make it go faster.”

“I know,” she said, tapping her fingers on the sofa’s arm. “Can’t you hear anything?”

“In a fae house?” Mortalis asked. “They have spells in place for that.”

Mal looked at her. “Are you impatient to be home? Or are you anxious about getting the ring back?”

Her fingers stilled. “Why? You think Loudreux is going to try something else?” If he didn’t give the ring back after all this…

“No,” Mal said. “He wouldn’t dare. I’ll make sure of that.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Mortalis corrected. “Being fae doesn’t mean I’m on his side.”

“You’ve proven that,” she told him. After all, he knew that Mal’s persuasion worked on fae and hadn’t said anything.