Demon's Triad (8 page)

Demon’s Triad

“Wake up!” The volume her mother used was bad enough, but the feel of her hand, hot and stinging, on Aleeza’s cheek was enough to make her bolt into a seated position on the cot where she’d sacked out for the night.

“What the fuck? Shit, Mona, stop hitting me!” Aleeza rolled to the floor to avoid another well-aimed smack from Mommy dearest, who looked like she herself had just crawled out of bed after a restless night.

Mona’s hair hung in a tangled wave down to her waist, and her long, peacock-colored night dress was wrinkled and reeked of last night’s cigarette smoke. Aleeza held her breath as she scuttled across the floor on her hands and knees, barely keeping clear of Mona’s furiously kicking feet. Her mom might not have wasted time getting dressed before she ran out to the shed behind the house, but she had stopped to slide on her mud boots. The last thing Aleeza needed this morning was a kick in the ass or anywhere else from one of those. She knew she would lose what little she’d managed to shove down her throat before she passed out last night. Hell, she might lose it anyway if she had to keep moving this fast.

“Mom, please, stop it, I can explain,” Aleeza said, crawling into the corner and cowering there with her arms across her face. She had no idea if she could explain or not but hoped the words would penetrate her mother’s rage. Mona hadn’t struck her in years, not since she was about twelve and tall enough to fight back, so whatever had pissed her off must be serious business indeed.

“If I’d thought you were going to try something like this, there ‘s no way in hell I would have given you the root. What were you thinking? Have you lost what little sense you were born with?” Mona ran a frantic hand through her hair, revealing eyes shot through with red.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aleeza snapped. The sense she was born with? That must be from her father’s side since Mona was about as sensitive as your average parole officer.

“You’re in heat!” Mona screamed the words loud enough to stir the birds nesting in the old tin roof above the shed.

“What?” Aleeza laughed and immediately regretted it when her mother delivered another kick in her direction. It made contact with her shin, but Mona had lost the driving force of her anger so it didn’t hurt—much.

“I’m betting you’ll ovulate in the next few days, and you’re practically vibrating with sex energy. If the sperm is still viable, you could get pregnant!”

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“What?” Aleeza tried to smile, to pretend her mother had finally lost it, but the lump that had suddenly taken up residence in her throat made it difficult.

“Pregnant, and with goddess knows what,” her mother said, sinking to the cot and dropping her forehead into her trembling hands.

Goddess…what had she done? Aleeza hadn’t even thought about contraception, and especially hadn’t bargained on Mona’s particular breed of reproductive magic leading to her discovery. She’d thought she would be safe here or at least safer than she would have been at her own apartment.

The entire building had been touched by black magic, not enough to leave an obvious stain, but the slight stink of it had left Aleeza nauseous and more than a little concerned. Was the blackness new? Placed there by some force that knew what she had done and was eager to make contact? Or had it been there for months, going unnoticed until she approached the building with Dorand’s borrowed power held within her? The white light had begun to glow the instant she set foot on her block and practically burned a knot in her stomach when she’d tried to mount the steps to her apartment.

It was already four in the morning by that time, so Aleeza had taken her Taco Hut takeout and driven across town to camp out in Mona’s shed. She’d thought she’d be safe there, at least until morning when the hard light of day might offer some answers.

But she should have known better. She hadn’t been safe at Mona’s when she was a relatively innocent little kid and she wasn’t safe here now. She had to get out and find someone who might really be able to offer some help.

“Listen, Mona. I think you just had a hard night. I was out late and yeah, I did try to hook up with a couple of guys—”

“A couple?”

“But nothing happened,” Aleeza continued, ignoring the shame that tried to rear its head at Mona’s shocked expression. So she had considered fucking two men at the same time. So what? It wouldn’t have hurt anyone. Could Mona say the same about all of her decisions? “We’re cursed, remember? They were out cold before contraception could even become an issue.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Mom—”

“No really,” Mona interrupted, tears in her eyes. “Do you think I’m stupid? I know you’ve always thought I was a shitty excuse for a mother, and a bitch who ran away your precious Daddy, but do you actually believe I’m a fool?”

The question hung in the air, floating between them in the silence left as the angry finches that nested in the shed’s roof flew away into the cold morning air. Aleeza shivered and pulled the old flannel she had found in her trunk tighter across her chest.

Her mother never cried. Never. Not when her dad left, not when Simon was nearly killed on his first mission for Gunera Bounty.

“Mom, don’t worry. Whatever I’ve done, I’m prepared to handle the consequences.

This isn’t about the coven, or you, or—”

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“If you believe that, then you’re the fool.” Mona shook her head and let out a small, strangled laugh, smearing tears across her face with the finger and thumb she dug into the tops of her closed eyes. “Come in the house. Let me get you some herbs to help prevent fertilization. Then you’ve got to got see Gavyn.”

“I’m off work today,” Aleeza said, the lame excuse falling from her lips even as she rose to follow Mona back into the house. If there was one other member of their coven who might be able to sense what she’d done, it would be Gavyn. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him until she’d had time for a shower and a nice, long shielding session.

“He called here looking for you this morning when he couldn’t reach you at your place. He’s got another private client lined up but Daniel is still out of town on another job.”

“Right,” Aleeza said, mentally cursing herself for being such a damned workaholic.

Only she and Daniel had managed to complete the sixty-hour correspondence course for their license in Special Supernatural Investigations. None of the other coven members had been overly enthusiastic about expanding Gunera Bounty into areas other than bail bond enforcement, but she and Daniel had seen the possibilities of Gavyn’s idea immediately. If Gunera Bounty became Gunera Bounty and Investigations, there would be more work to go around and eventually better money once they built a reputation.

But right now, her ability to look to the future of her coven was working against her. If she was the only one in town licensed to take this big job, there was no way she could avoid Gavyn. She was going to have to head into the office…and pray her coven leader wasn’t as sharply attuned to reproductive magic as Mona.

* * * * *

“Gunera Bounty and Investigations has its second job. At this rate we’re going to need more people certified, pronto. I’m putting you in charge of finding volunteers.

And don’t tell me you can’t find them. Let them know how much cash you’re getting for this and they’ll be jumping at the chance.”

Aleeza hadn’t even finished closing the door behind her before Gavyn spoke, waving a thick manila folder in her direction. “Here.” The sunlight streaming in the frosted glass window behind him cast an odd whitish glow around his dark head, like the glow of Dorand’s energy the night before had made his skin gleam. Aleeza shivered and hurried to take the file from Gavyn, making sure their fingers didn’t touch.

“Good morning to you too. And how much money am I getting for this job anyway?”

“What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?” Gavyn’s smile faded and his green eyes narrowed. He held on to the file more tightly.

For a second Aleeza thought he might pull her over the desk into his lap and make her sit there and say “ah”. Gavyn was their coven’s strongest healer and had basically 43

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been her pediatrician when she was growing up. Aleeza had learned every healing spell she knew from him and had known he would be able to sense something off with her energy. She shouldn’t have come here, should have made him fill her in over the phone and picked up the damn file later after she’d had a nice long nap.

“Nothing’s wrong. Give me a break, Gavyn. I haven’t been sick in ten years,” she said, rolling her eyes and pulling the file from his grip with a firm yank. Play it off, she just had to play it off and get out of here ASAP.

“Don’t bullshit me, there’s something wrong,” Gavyn said. “You seem different somehow.”

Aleeza sat down in one of the cracked leather chairs and shrugged, keeping her eyes down, scanning the words on the folder without reading them. “Nothing. I guess I’m just tired. I had a late night.”

“No, your energy feels off, like it’s been tampered with. Maybe—”

“What’s the case, Gavyn? The sooner you tell me about it, the sooner I can start, and the sooner we get paid.”

“I like that you’re eager.” Gavyn gave her another hard look, then leaned back in his own, much nicer chair, and put his feet up on the mess of paper covering his desk.

Every Gunera Aleeza knew had offered to help him organize the office at least once, but Gavyn insisted he had a system. “But this is a challenging job, and if there’s any question about your health—”

“Cut the crap, Gavyn. You’d send me out while I was in the middle of giving birth if the job paid well enough.”

Now why had she said that? Giving birth? Idiot.

Gavyn smiled and rubbed his own ever-rounding belly. “Funny you mention that, Al. I’m sending you up to the Pekora Forest for this one.”

Only the powerful shields Aleeza had built up since heading for the office kept her from betraying her emotions. Did Gavyn know where she’d been last night? She wouldn’t put it past the old man to fuck with her a little before he dealt out a punishment. But surely he wouldn’t be so blasé if he’d known what she’d been up to in the woods. Best to keep playing dumb and give out as little information as possible.

“Oh? What’s up there, except a bunch of Amiantos?”

“That’s right. The Amiantos have hired us for this one. I’m sure you can’t wait to get better acquainted. Might be your chance to finally meet that special someone.” The words were ripe with sarcasm. If Gavyn had ever been married, Aleeza didn’t know about it, and he certainly knew how she felt about the undefiled coven.

“You know I don’t want to meet any damned Amiantos. I’m surprised you even took a job from them. Are you sure it’s not a trap? They might be working with the human police.”

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“No, the job is legit. The question is, are you? I don’t want to send a frustrated virgin up there to be swept off her feet by some blond god and make our company, and our coven, look like a bunch of fools.”

“What are you talking about, Gavyn? I still feel the same way I always have about them,” Aleeza said, her heart beating fast in her throat. He knew. Shit, he had to know, and now she was going to be in the biggest trouble of her life. She might be kicked out of the coven or worse, she might be—

“Really? Because I’ve been hearing some things. Like maybe you’re getting a little too frustrated with celibacy. I heard you ended up on your ass in an alley last night so desperate you were going to let that living dildo Keller into your pants.” He stood up, all six feet of him looming over her from behind his desk. He was a big man in every sense of the word and the closest thing she’d had to a father since her own disappeared.

Looking into his angry face and not spilling everything wasn’t the easiest thing she’d ever done, but she met his green eyes with her dark brown ones and willed a look of complete innocence onto her features.

“Not to mention, you reek of male. How many guys were you with last night?”

“W-What?” Goddess help her, she’d almost said, “only one.” “What are you talking about?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about.”

Shit. Shitshitshit. “Fine, Gavyn. Yes. I tried to pick up two different guys last night. I thought maybe if the guys weren’t supers I could make it work. It didn’t. The experience left me drained so I did a spell to charge back up and it’s made me a little high. Then my mom pumped me full of herbs this morning to ‘even out my humors’

and I’m about to throw up on your desk. I just need a shower and a nap, and I’ll be ready to go. I don’t want an Amiantos man any more than I ever did, and I’ve never,
never
, embarrassed this company.”

He gave her a hard look, then took a deep breath and sat back down. He’d bought it, at least for now. “No, you haven’t, but I’m warning you, Al—”

“Can we just get to the briefing so I can go home and clean up before I head into enemy territory?” All that training paid off. Lies came so easily to her now.

“They’re not my favorite coven either, but they’re the client and I expect you to treat them with respect. Amiantos might not be our friends, but neither are they the enemy.”

“They might as well be.”

“You can’t really believe that, Al. Sometimes it works out between the Gunera and the Amiantos. Just because your father—”

“Damn it, Gavyn, are you going to brief me or not?” She stood up, anger suddenly boiling in her chest. How dare he, how
dare
he talk like this? Who did he think he was?

She wanted to hit him, to punch him, to slice his throat with her nails and let his blood run—the desire was so strong for a minute she thought she’d done it. She saw Gavyn’s 45

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limp body on the floor, saw herself standing over him, laughing, sucking his power into her body…

What the
hell
?!

“Aleeza? Aleeza! Are you okay?” Gavyn’s hands squeezed her arms so hard it hurt.