Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) (24 page)

Joey hisses and snaps him off like a whiplash, and Gavain spills to the floor, giggling, with green serpent blood sliding sweetly down his throat. That was fun.

Tam laughs, breathless and cruel. "Don't waste your fucking breath, bitch."

Gavain's laughter chokes him, and his guts melt like a naughty child's. He doesn't want to know whether Tam means Delilah or him.

"Wait a second, Joey." Delilah stalks over with Jewel in tow. The smoke girl stumbles and follows, that naughty brass bangle cutting into her flower-scented wrist. Gavain warned her about the brass. She didn't see, and now look.

Delilah crooks her finger under the wire between Gavain's wrists, hauling him to his feet. "Righto, fairybait, make yourself useful for once. Tell me her name."

His balance rocks with the Jewel-scent of jasmine, and futility bubbles in his throat like cheap champagne, but he persists. "I did as you asked. I brought them here. Now give me what you promised."

Jewel's jaw drops. "You crafty little b—" Her voice cuts off in a yell as Delilah yanks the chain tight.

"Shut it, slave girl. Now, Gavain, sweetie, be reasonable. Tell us her name and I won't peel your skin off and wear it for a sunhat. Sound fair?"

"Don't know it." Defiance salts his mouth, a glorious lie.

"Is that so?" A purplish smirk spreads Delilah's lips, revealing bright sickle teeth. "Oh, well. Never mind. Time for your reward. Are you sure you want your reward, Gavain?"

His fae senses sparkle helpless warning. Huh?

"Ever wonder why your precious Tam wanted this thing in the first place?" She swings the lamp before his eyes.

Gavain musters a twisted shrug. "Stuff. Loot. Collecting. He's clever like that."

Delilah strokes Gavain's chin. "Shall I tell him, Tam?"

"Fuck you." Tam's calm, casual, cool as shit. Even while Joey devours him with a mercy-starved stare. Guilt wrenches Gavain's fae-scattered heart, unforgiving.

But Delilah just smirks at Tam. "Shall I tell him how long you've got left to deliver this lamp to Kane? How long did he give you? Until morning, before you're dragged back to hell?"

Jewel's face drains, color vanishing like smoke.

Gavain's blood freezes like a glacier. No. No way. Not allowed. Not not not.

A mad fae cackle forces from his throat. Crackle, pop, splinter, ouch. His heart. Shattered. Icy shards grow their cold roots into his ribs, excruciating.

Truth: this is the blackest mess he's ever made. Howl, scream, claw. Die.

Choice: thwart Delilah's will, and she'll make Tam hate him forever. Or: obey her, and Tam screams in hell.

No choice.

Gavain's vision mists with scarlet tears. "Smoke," he whispers, for Jewel alone to hear. And then he falls to his knees at her feet, and exhales.

***

Chapter Twenty-Four

Gavain's magical breath dampened my wrist, and agony bubbled up my arm like acid.

I screamed. God, it hurt, jabbing like a thousand white-hot needles, Delilah's wicked brass shackle fighting every molecule. I held my breath tight, pressure building in my sinuses. My ears popped. My teeth juddered in my gums.

And then, my arm dissolved, and the horrid cuff clanked free.

Bless you, Gavain, you sneaky little shit.

Hot blood rushed under my skin, energizing, and I jerked away and sprinted for Shiny Joey and Tam.

Tam, the lying, thieving bastard who'd just broken my heart.

Damn it. He'd known all along he'd betray me. So stupid, to think he was any different from the rest. He'd never wanted me. He just wanted my lamp.

But I still needed him to get out of here.

Delilah gasped, her mouth hanging open. "You can't do that. Get back here!" And she reached out an impossibly long and elastic arm. Huge fingers grasped for me. My head jerked sideways, hair ripping. Caught. I staggered, helpless.

But Gavain screeched, a banshee's high-pitched wail, and leapt onto Delilah's back, his long limbs clutching like a big stick insect's. With a whoop, he forced his shackled wrists over her head and yanked.

The wire dug deep into her throat. She howled, and released me, scrabbling at the wire and teetering backwards under his weight.

Clang!

My lamp, slipping from her fingers. Bouncing to the floor, rolling to a stop against the dusty skirting board.

I dived for it. My hand crystallized, fresh blood tingling. My shoulder thudded into the wall, and beloved brass slapped into my palm.

Hot tears swelled my lids. I pressed the cool metal to my cheek, aching with sated need. Just like always, the smell of jasmine, dusty and ancient, the sharp press of the etching into my skin, the angles and curves and indentations I knew by heart. Overwrought emotion spilled through me, suffocating. My heart stung and overflowed. God, I hated this thing. But I loved it, too. I needed it.

Pity it didn't love me.

Pity the man who went with it this time was a double-crossing prick with shit for morals like all the rest. At least this one had the grace to feel guilty about having sex with me. I guess that gave him minus a few million points plus one.

I clutched the lamp close to my chest, protective. What now? Delilah kept wailing, wolflike, and Gavain kept hooting like a drunken owl on her back, ripping gleefully at her face with ichor-stained claws.

In the corner, Shiny Joey's suit had ripped open at the back, and jagged black fins thrust out from his shoulder blades. His face had grown narrow and black like a snake's. He hissed, forked tongue flashing, and sliced a talon-tipped flipper at Tam's face.

Dark blood oozed on Tam's cheek. He cursed and clocked Joey over the ear, his fist connecting with a wet crack. Joey's dented hat tumbled to the floor.

Urgency stabbed my lungs like a stitch. I could run. Take the lamp and scamper out the door, let them fight it out.

But I'd be no better off than before. And Tam could still hand me over to this Kane person, just by saying the word. I didn't know Kane from a Hershey bar, but he couldn't be worse than Delilah, could he? Better the demon you don't know.

Worse, what if Joey kills Tam? Then it's Delilah for sure, she of the nasty brass shackles and sadistic jokes.

I swallowed, crusty. This is nothing to do with Tam's pretty face or his scorching kisses or his charming screw-you-all attitude. If he dies here, I'm toast.

Regret twisted in my stomach, but I ignored it and gripped my lamp tightly. I'd liked him. Felt something for him that went beyond blind lamptricks. But that was gone. Just let the rest of it be over quickly. I'm tired of this game.

I took a breath, and launched myself at Joey's back.

***

Joey whips out his neck and strikes like a serpent, and I fling up my arm to fend him off. His fangs slash twin ruts in my forearm, and the venom stings, faint and annoying as it bubbles under my skin. Go ahead, poison me. I'll let you know in a few weeks.

Fuck. This is so pointless. Why doesn't he just pull his pistol and shoot me like he did before? I'm hard to hurt, but surely I can't be indestructible. Enough bullets in the brain and even I'll stop giving him shit. I guess that lie about his girlfriend really hit a nerve.

Behind him, Gavain's still climbing all over Delilah like a devilish fairy monkey, and her hellish wails rend the air. Joey snarls, and quivers, ready for another strike.

But Jewel's already running. She rams her shoulder into Joey's back, a rugby tackle, and instead of fang-whipping my shoulder, Joey's snout bounces hard into the wall with a
snap!
of cartilage.

Foolish pride warms my blood again. Did you see her? That's my tough lady. I grab a handful of spiny black wrist and pull, hoping to snap his elbow in two over my thigh before he can twist free. But Joey recovers, faster than I'd anticipated, and whips around to slash at Jewel, bloody green poison splashing from his mouth.

She staggers back, her breath knocked out. His webbed talons scythe, dragging a spray of cherry blood behind them. She screams, clutching her bleeding chest.

The lamp bangs onto the floor and rolls away from her. Triple slashes sag open on her pretty silk shirt, and beneath her grasping fingers I can see mangled flesh, dripping with blood and garish green poison.

Fury tweaks my muscles tighter, and it feels like desire, hot and inevitable. My lady's bleeding. I'll rip his fucking heart out.

Guess what? I did fuck your girlfriend.
My own words come back to me, stained a different color by fresh awareness, and a twinge of sick solidarity surprises me. Is this how Joey feels about Mina? Tender? Raw and bleeding? Lashing out helplessly at the world in a vain effort to keep her safe?

Whatever. Doesn't make him the good guy. I grab his steely cane, rip it from his hand and smack him in the face with it.

Cartilage crunches. He shrieks like razors on a blackboard, and I grip the cane in both my sweaty hands and swing it again. The brassy knob dents his temple, and lumpy black liquid oozes out.

That's for Katie, you creepy fucking dinosaur. For my little girl, dead and bleeding on the carpet. For Jewel and her torn skin. For me, and every tortured hour I've spent in this rotting shell waiting for you.

He's not mortally injured, not snake-heart Joey. But he staggers, his balance shot, his shifting flesh taking a few moments to reorient and heal itself. On the floor, Jewel gasps for breath, blood staining her clutching hand.

I jam my knee into Joey's crotch, and watch him crumple to the floor.

He's mine.

Horrid delight sparks lust in my blood. I'll have a fucker of a bruise on my kneecap tomorrow, and my knuckles are split and dripping black blood, but I don't care. I'm bursting with murderous inspiration, and I want it so hard my balls ache.

Kick him in the kidneys and watch him piss blood. Stomp his serpent-ass skull to pulp, crack his vertebrae under my heel one by one. Jam that cane through his eye socket and twist until his sick little brains pour out. It's a wicked new strain of creativity I never knew I had.

But bile sloshes in my stomach, and I want to vomit. Part of me hates this. Believe it or not, I've never killed anyone.

Am I supposed to get off on it like this? Is this how Joey felt when he shot Katie?

For what it's worth, I didn't shoot your daughter.
His words at Valentino's echo in my head, ugly with unwanted possibility. What if he was telling the truth? Does it matter? Do I even care?

In my head, I know that killing him won't bring her back. But the way I feel is beyond reason or common sense. I've heard guys say that killing's just business, that they just switch on and do it and switch off again.

They're full of shit.

Delilah's still howling and staggering about with Gavain's teeth attached to her face. Joey curses in bubbles of blood, and struggles to rise. I slam my foot into his guts, and have to twist my ankle so it pops straight again. "Shut the fuck up, slimeball. I don't hear my lady whining."

She's not. She's barely moving, panting, Joey's toxin no doubt savaging her blood. She scrabbles at the floor, trying to drag herself over to her lamp where it lies in the corner, but she's not getting far. This is more than a scrape you can rinse off with whiskey and stick a Band-Aid over. For an ordinary girl, I'd say hospital, one of those furtive gunshot dashes to the emergency room where you don't leave your name and sneak out the first time they're not looking, so you don't have to explain and get arrested.

But she's no ordinary girl. What do I do? How do I patch up a woman who's made of smoke?

I flick my gaze back and forth. Lamp. Joey. Jewel. What if she passes out? I can't carry her. Can she smoke if she can't hear me?

One more strangled screech, and Delilah thuds at last to the floor, limp and motionless. Gavain grabs her by the hair and slams her skull into the timber, a snarl fixed on his face.

At my feet, Joey chokes up frothy green bile, and drags himself on knees and elbows towards Jewel.

I grab his spiny ankle and yank him back. "Where d'you think you're going?"

After all this time, he's in my power at last. I should just waste his scrawny ass. But my hands jerk and sweat, and rotten spit sours my mouth. That lemony taste again. Guilt. Jesus. When did I grow a conscience?

Gavain smacks Delilah's head into the floor again, her shoulders pinned under his knees. "She's waking up, Tam. Get out of here."

And when the fuck did
he
grow one?

Joey gives me a ghastly green grin, and snakes out a webbed black hand to wrap Jewel's slender ankle. She shrieks, kicking, and that's all I can take.

I swing Joey's cane again, a sweet golf stroke, and connect with the back of his skull.
Smack!
He crumples, his hand slackening. His chest still twitches with shallow breath, his glassy eyes still shining. Unconscious, not dead. He's a tough bastard, faeborn Joey. But it's all I've got time for.