Darkest Before Dawn (17 page)

T
he last time
I’d broken into the Lounge, I’d been with Akil, and Levi had flushed me down a hallway. I chalked that up to him having the element of surprise. This time I was ready. I had no wish to repeat that experience and planned to get Dawn out before the Prince of Envy realized we were on his turf. In all likelihood, he wouldn’t be on the premises. Surely princes had better things to do than stalk empty clubs? If not, I was ready to flash-fry his ass.

Dawn’s cage was right where I’d left it. Ryder’s flashlight beam washed over her. She gripped the bars, eyes wide. Swirling protection symbols flared beneath her delicate hands, and a peculiar quiver of power jolted through me.
Not Levi’s element.
I shook it off while Ryder cut the padlocks.

I swept my gaze across the shadows coating the dance floor, gun in hand, anti-prince rounds locked and loaded. I’d shoot the slippery bastard between the eyes before he could say, “Boo.” Bam. No talking. No evil monologue. That’s how things go wrong. Levi was too destructive. Give him an inch, and he’d take a mile. That wasn’t going to happen. I’d pepper him full of bullets and hope they killed him. At the very least, it’d ruin his pretty human-suit and slow him down.

Dawn burst from the cage and clung to my leg. I sunk a hand into her hair. “It’s okay, honey. We’re gettin’ out of here.”

Breathless whispers slipped from her lips too quietly for me to hear. I crouched down. Her wide eyes pleaded. She shivered and whispered. “He’s here...” Her breaths fluttered across my cheek.

Ryder dropped the bolt cutters. They clattered against the floor. “Fuck. Muse. What the fuck?”

He lifted his gun at arm’s length. Tremors wracked his grip. He aimed at Dawn, then brought the weapon up, and tracked me with it as I straightened. Perspiration beaded his pale face. “This ain’t me. I’m not doing this!”

Ushering Dawn behind my legs, I mumbled, “I know.” I searched the dark. I couldn’t see Levi, couldn’t even sense him.

“Fuck, Muse. I can’t—I can’t stop it.”

Ryder’s disjointed hand angled the gun around. His arm followed until he held the muzzle at his temple. His expression twitched. He drew his lips back and snarled. “Get the fuck out of my head!” His eyes darted, searching for the source.

“Levi...” I growled. “Are you a coward now?” My voice bounced around the empty club. “Not going to show yourself?” Any second, I’d hear a gunshot, and Ryder would be gone. Adrenalin surged through my veins, threatening to pull the fire in its wake. “You don’t need to kill my friend.”

Ryder dropped to his knees with a strangled cry. He was fighting it. He’d die fighting if I didn’t act fast.

Dawn whimpered and huddled in close. “Dammit, Levi, face me!”

Water vapor coalesced on the dance floor. I aimed my gun and narrowed my sights down the barrel as the steam adopted a female outline. The vapor spun up, like a reverse waterspout, and She-Vi stepped out. I pulled the trigger. The blast cracked the air. The gun kicked in my hand. The bullet splashed through She-Vi’s forehead and smacked into the wall somewhere in the shadows behind.

She-Vi laughed.

A knot of dread tightened in my gut, even as I fired again, and again. Well, damn. I’d been so convinced the rounds would at least slow Levi down. It hadn’t occurred to me they’d sail right through his watery vessel.

“Burn the bitch!” Ryder hissed.

She-Vi’s brow jumped. “Summon your element, undead half blood, and I’ll redecorate these premises with the contents of his skull.”

My demon rattled her mental cage. She wanted out. The lure of the veil, albeit quiet, lingered within my reach. How quickly could I open it, draw from beyond, and throw flame at Levi? I was fast, but not bullet-fast. Given time, I could boil Levi dry from the inside out, but not before he killed Ryder. God, what had I done? I’d been so desperate to free Dawn, I hadn’t even considered Ryder’s vulnerability – his human mind.

“Half bloods are intriguing.” She-Vi’s singsong voice rippled through the dark. “Demon and human. Both and neither. Humans are puppets of flesh. All of them.” Levi stalked to one side then the other, pacing, observing, weighing the three of us. “Humans dance for me.” Her double-eyelids flickered. “They break like toys. I discard them, find more. Those break. They come here and drown themselves in drugs and alcohol to forget. Their fragile minds shatter. It’s tiresome. But half bloods... Half bloods break and come back for more. My little half blood was learning well before Carol-Anne took it upon herself to flaunt my pet in front of Mammon. My little one, my Dawn, has spirit. There’s no sweeter taste in the mind than a crushed spirit.” She stopped pacing and lifted a hand, curling her fingers into a fist. “Like you, Muse. You were dead. The infamous half-blood daughter, Mother of Destruction. Ruined, spoiled, broken. Tortured...” She tasted the word on her lips. “And then deceased. Much was argued after your demise. Mammon believes it. Asmodeus believes it. The Court of Dark believes it. Nonetheless, here you stand: changed, hungry, raw. And yet you are the same petulant human, once again stealing what is mine. Valenti’s sister, no less. And he had the gall to chastise me for losing my little pet. Your persistence is commendable. One might begin to believe the whispers cloying the air around you, Muse. Perhaps your father, Lust, is not wrong.”

“Take me to Asmodeus,” I said, hoping to bargain my way out. “I won’t fight you. Just let Ryder and Dawn go.” Levi had been tasked with my retrieval. I’d worry about my own chances of survival once my friends were safe.

She-Vi chuckled. “Why would I let them go? Dawn belongs to me. Half bloods must be owned. That is the way of things. And this puppet... Ryder? He is nothing. I would kill him now if his mind did not harbor such delicious intricacies. This one is a killer, a hard man, and yet so perfectly simple.”

“Bitch!” Ryder snarled. “If you wanna mind-fuck me, come over here and let’s get personal. Go deep, I like it rough. See what you find in there, princess.”

She-Vi’s body shimmered. In the next step, Levi was all masculine and muscle again. He cocked his head and observed Ryder curiously.

“Well, fuck me.” Ryder spat a harsh laugh, gun muzzle grazing his temple. “Now if that ain’t an instant turn-off, I don’t know what is.”

Levi’s double-eyelids blinked, but otherwise he didn’t move. Ryder appeared to fascinate him. Maybe it was his no-bullshit stance on life. He had a military past. Perhaps those memories intrigued Levi. While I coiled a slither of energy into my body, Ryder locked his fury-laden stare on Levi. To reach for the veil, I’d need to call my demon, but I didn’t have time to do both. Levi would sense my demon as soon as she broke over my skin. He’d blow Ryder away.

Dawn’s tiny hand slipped into mine, and a curl of slick energy touched my palm. I tightened my grip, afraid to look down at her for fear of catching Levi’s attention.

“It’s okay,” Dawn said. Only she didn’t. Her voice plunged through my thoughts like a beam through the dark. “I will unmake him.” The crawling touch of her power dragged up my arm, spilling pins and needles in its wake. I flinched. The human part of me wanted to recoil and sprint away from her, as though something about her tiny body repelled me. Her power bloomed beneath my feet. A wash of energy rose over me, knocking me aside. One minute, I stood beside Dawn, my skin trying to crawl away from her, the next I was face down half a dance floor away, ears ringing, body dashed by countless needles of pain. I pushed up on my hands, wincing as a sudden pain scurried around my skull. Raw energy tickled my skin, itching madly. I had to fight not to dig my nails in and scratch the unwanted element out of me. Whatever element she wielded, my humanity ran screaming.

I twisted, half scrambling to my feet and saw Dawn, or rather, saw her demon. She was a nightmare of liquid green and oil black suspended a few feet off the ground, back arched, arms out. Dark-light bled through her emerald skin. A mass of oily, black barbed vines lashed about her head, each moving independently. Vines sprouted from her back, tangled around her, exploded outward, and knotted through the mangled miasmic cloud that had once been Levi. Dawn had literally unmade him, torn into him, pulled him apart, and thrown him back together into a frothing soup of blood, flesh, and water. The vines picked, plucked, and stabbed, working like a thousand needles.

My breath caught in my throat. I could taste her element like poison polluting the air. Panic rattled around my skull. Every muscle strummed tight with the need to run. It was only my stubborn need to protect Dawn that rooted me to the spot, that and my demon’s morbid fascination.

In the dancing green light, I caught sight of Ryder pressed against the far wall. Gun clutched at his side, he cringed back from Dawn but didn’t look away. I knew, without doubt, that he’d kill her if she lost control.

One of Dawn’s vines snapped at me, cracking like a whip at my feet. I flinched back as more separated from the river and peeled toward me. “Dawn...” They still came, rippling above the dance floor, eager and hungry. “Dawn?” I back-pedaled. “Dawn!”

She didn’t see or hear me. Her all-green eyes were locked on Levi’s mess, her little head cocked to one side as her tendrils knitted parts of Levi back together and then unraveled him all over again.

The slick touch of her power snaked around my ankle and tugged my leg out from under me. I fell hard on my ass. The abhorrent crawl of Dawn’s power yanked my demon out of me, plunging fire through my flesh. Dawn swung her blazing green eyes on me, dropping what was left of Levi. Blood and bone splashed across the dance floor. Her whip-like tendrils reared up behind her tiny body. Countless eels of energy hovered in the air, poised to strike.

“Dawn... I know you’re in there, honey.” My demon slur couldn’t hide the quiver in my voice. “Don’t let it rule you.” Her dark energy swelled, replacing the air with a sour, elemental soup, heavy with energies not of this world. She was so little. How was she supposed to fight the desires of the demon riding her? Her demon might have been physically small, but the power she wielded wasn’t. She hadn’t even drawn from the veil.

Her element broke free and lunged for me. I thrust out a retort of fire, blasting her back. A gut-churning scream pierced the roar of my fire. Dammit, I was hurting her. I recalled my element, and realized my mistake as soon as the eels plunged through the fizzling embers and coiled around my legs. Her element, whatever dark power it was, knotted around my limbs and tightened. This couldn’t be happening. Would she unmake me as she had Levi?

A gunshot punched through the air. Dawn collapsed with a cry. Her demon-form shattered. The black eels coiled around me splintered and dissolved, leaving behind a film of sticky black tar.

Shaking off my demon, I got to my feet and stumbled to Dawn as Ryder approached her. “Jesus, Ryder, you shot her.” Blood pooled beneath her fragile body. I gathered her into my arms, snatched up her rabbit, and glared over her shoulder at Ryder. “Goddamn it, she’s just a little girl.”

He had the decency to look horrified before his training kicked in. “She’s dangerous.” He jerked a thumb at the pile of flesh and blood that had once been a Prince of Hell. “You wanna end up like Legolas over there?”

Dawn buried her head against my neck. This wasn’t the time to rage at Ryder, but I’d be having a few sharp words with him once we were safe. “We have to get out of here.” She’d killed a prince. Holy hell, killing a prince would surely trigger alarm bells in the netherworld. Plus, every demon in the local area would have sensed her power-drain.

Ryder offered me a hand. I ignored it and pulled Dawn close while staggering to my feet. “Let’s get her to the car. I need to see how bad the wound is.”

“I just grazed her,” he grumbled. “I should have killed her.”

I glared at him as we made a dash for the doors. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

“She was gonna kill you, Muse.”

I uttered a string of colorful curses and shoved through the door of the club into a wall of bright light. The full weight of half a dozen spotlights blinded me. My demon reared up, poised for a fight. She tried to wench my control away. I staggered back with a snarl, fighting instincts and alarm.

“
RELEASE THE HALF BLOOD
.” A voice boomed somewhere behind the barricade of blinding light. Enforcers. A rich melodic growl bubbled up from my demon. I swung an accusing glare at Ryder. He’d set me up.

Hands raised, gun still palmed, he backed up. The bastard was retreating to join his ranks. “It’s for the best.”

Like hell it was. I glared hard into the lights and made out a handful of cars, maybe a dozen Enforcers, all armed, all ready to shoot me down if I made one wrong move.

“Muse...” Dawn mumbled.

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” And it would be okay. Because they weren’t having her. “I want you pretend you’re somewhere safe. Somewhere warm. Think of the beach.”

“I’ve never been to a beach.”

My heart broke for her, and I nearly dropped the reins of my demon right then. “When we get out of this, I promise to take you.” I set her gently on the road outside The Voodoo Lounge and straightened to face my enemies.

“
STEP AWAY FROM THE HALF BLOOD.”

Screw you.

I stepped around Dawn’s vulnerable form and lifted my hands. My eyes had adjusted to the stark whiteness. I could see the Enforcers much clearer now. Some, I knew. Adam wasn’t there. Ryder stood off to the left on the fringes of the cadre. His steely eyes watched me while the others appeared more interested in Dawn. Ryder knew where the real threat lay. He stilled, lifted his chain, and shouted an order.

In a second’s thought, my demon slammed into me. I planted both feet and closed my eyes. The veil opened with a precise mental swipe, and freedom whispered in my ear. Yes, this was right. My fire danced with me, roaring loud, swallowing the sounds of gunfire. Bullets slapped against my molten skin. I tasted melted metal in the blaze. Doubt didn’t exist. Fear had fled. When Damien’s poison seeped out of its hiding place and flushed through my veins, it didn’t matter. They would not have Dawn.