Devil May Care (5 page)

T
he demon’s
scales shimmered beneath the streetlights. His scaled armor rattled, and he hissed a warning. He blinked inner eyelids over round green pupils and bolted down the suburban street. He had wings bunched against his back, but for whatever reason, he wasn’t using them. Head down, I dashed down the sidewalk after him. He swerved around a mailbox and leapt over a picket fence.

Things had taken a turn for the worse rather quickly.
A routine call,
Ryder had said.
Drop by on your way back
.
Form filling exercise
. The demon had known what I was as soon as I’d climbed from the non-descript Institute Nissan. The curtain in the front window of the house had twitched. From there, things went south before I had a chance to knock.

Mister Average had exited that quaint clapboard house with enough swagger in his stride to make me hesitate and reach for my gun right before his entire man-suit peeled apart to reveal the demon inside. Despite being an Enforcer, I hadn’t actually expected to come face to face with a seven-foot, winged-demon on a leafy suburban street. He lunged forward, lower jaw splitting apart to reveal four writhing tendrils, each tipped with barbs, then hissed a warning and bolted. Considering his armored bulk, he ran like the wind.

I took the picket fence in a leap and chased his shadow around the side of a house, into the back yard. He didn’t head out the back gate as I’d expected, but plowed straight through the glass sliding doors and into the house. Evidently, the demon knew the owners, and they’d invited him in sometime in the past; for coffee, maybe.

I jabbed at my cell. Without needing to make a call, I sent an alert to HQ letting them know the situation was about to get out of hand. They’d be all over this place in minutes. Broken glass crunched beneath my boots as I stepped through the shattered doors into a lounge. The house was dark except for a few blinking lights from various electronic gadgets. It would take a while for my eyes to adjust. I reached inside my jacket and unclipped the Baretta Pico from its holster. I cupped the little gun in a firm grip. Normal bullets wouldn’t keep a demon down for long—that was what the jet-injector in my left pocket with its dose of PC34 was for. Bullets, however, were an effective deterrent should this demon decide I’d make a tasty early evening snack.

I checked the hall and listened. A clock ticked somewhere to my left, and the boiler hummed. A board creaked above me. I was light on my feet, but each stair groaned a protest as I made my way to the second floor.

At the top, I paused. I didn’t have back-up, and my eyes weren’t fully adjusted to the dark. I wasn’t sure of the demon’s lineage, but I could bet my month’s wages on him having better night vision than me.

Muffled shuffling and a few awkward bumps behind a closed door revealed his location. He was waiting. I had two choices: wait for back-up, or take him down myself. Training told me to wait, but there was more at stake than following the guidelines. If I could take this demon down, on my own, Adam would have to admit I was ready to qualify as an Enforcer. He might still withhold my demon, but it would be another step toward freedom.

“This doesn’t have to get nasty.” I kept my voice level, trying to instill some calm authority. I didn’t quite nail it, probably due to the fact I was about to go toe-to-toe with a demon twice my size. “I don’t know why you ran, but if you’ve done nothing wrong, you don’t need to worry. Why don’t you come out, tell me your side, and nobody gets bumped back across the veil.”

More shuffling accompanied a rattle of scales. “You’ll kill me.” He must have reapplied his man-suit because the voice sounded human and afraid.

“Not unless I have to.” I flexed my slick grip on the gun.

“Your kind don’t ask questions. You shoot to kill. I know.” His words tumbled out so quickly that he barely took breaths between them. “It was that Missus Donaldson. Wasn’t it? Always sticking her nose in. I just want to stay here—that’s all. That’s not going to happen now. No way. I’ll have to leave. I can’t go back. I can’t. It’s been too long. Too long.”

I inched closer to the door. “Like I said. We don’t kill unless we have to.” I pressed my back against the wall and reached my left hand down to the handle, gripping the gun in my right. A car screeched to a halt outside, then another. Once the heavies arrived, the demon was toast. “Let me walk you out of here, and you’ll have your chance to plead your case. Fight me, and the Institute will take you out, or worse.”

“Is it t-true?”

I pushed down on the handle. “Is what true?”

“They capture us; run tests, like we’re animals.”

I hesitated, hand lingering on the handle, door almost released. I didn’t know the answer for certain, but I knew what they’d done to me and some of what they’d done to Stefan, and I suspected we were the lucky ones. I could have lied and told him everything would be fine, that the Institute was reasonable, that they wouldn’t hurt him, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe I felt something like compassion for him. Demon to demon. “Yes.”

“Then you can’t have me.”

I flung open the door and ducked inside, swinging the gun around while taking in the child’s bedroom with its Disney character bedclothes and bright wallpaper. I pinned the demon in my sights. He reared up to his full height, shook off his man-suit, and stretched badly deformed wings out behind him. Those green eyes fixed on me right before he sprang forward.

I fired, and the little gun kicked in my hands. The heat from my element poured into my veins and thrust fire into my muscles. The influx of raw elemental power snapped down my spine and jerked away my control. I protectively recoiled in on myself, my demon assailant momentarily forgotten. He rammed me up against the wall. His barbed tongues thrashed at my face. My hand slipped on his scales, but I couldn’t get purchase to shove him back. I dug my nails in and tried to keep him at arm’s length, but the tongues still writhed too close to my face. I wedged the gun under his jaw and pulled the trigger. The bullet blasted through his skull, jerked his chin up, and threw his head back. He fell away from me into a heap on the floor.

Ripples of fire rolled down my legs and seeped across the floor. A pool of flame reached for the demon’s body and lapped at his arm. His armored-fingers twitched, muscles retracting from the heat. Fire laced around each digit, exploring, tasting. It wasn’t an attack, more a curious investigation, but it shouldn’t have been happening at all. I had no control over it.

I jabbed the toe of my boot into his torso. He didn’t move. Even after a gunshot to the head, you can never be too careful.

Car doors slammed outside. Boots hammered on the sidewalk.

I couldn’t let the Enforcers see me like this. I dashed into the bathroom at the back of the house. The fire’s embrace wrapped tightly around my body, pulling back from flammable surfaces like a creature with its own consciousness. I opened the window just as the bathroom door opened.

Ryder shied away from the heat, arm up to shield himself. Orange light danced over him.

I backed away. “Don’t tell them.”

His expression tightened, lips parting. He would have to tell the Institute. Of course he would. It was his job. His life. I was his responsibility. He didn’t need to say it. I read the truth on his face.

I held out a hand. Liquid fire rippled across my skin and twisted around my fingers. “Don’t come near me. I can’t control it. It shouldn’t be happening.” He chanced a step closer. “Don’t! Please. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Muse...” There were others behind him, more witnesses.

I felt the window at my back and eased my hand through. “I mean it. Stay back.” I ducked through the window and jumped. The impact with the backyard jolted through my legs. I used the pain to drive me forward and ran. Not unlike the demon I’d chased down, I ran from those I knew would hurt me. The men and woman back there, they’d see demon, not colleague.

I burst through the rear gate, flames spluttering, and dashed down a path toward a park. The Enforcers were behind me, shouting orders, coordinating their efforts to round me up. Pain sparked up my side as though someone had taken a sword to my flesh. I staggered and fell to a knee. The hand I planted against the path to stop myself had blackened to the color of soot. My nails lengthened and gleamed like black glass, becoming obsidian talons that curled into the dirt. I was changing, revealing the demon, but I still couldn’t feel her. She was silent. Gone. This shouldn’t have been happening.

“Don’t move!”

I swung the gun around and fired. Ryder’s left shoulder jerked back, rocking him off balance. The snarl on my lips wasn’t my own. He brought his gun up and narrowed his gaze down the sight. A dark stain spread across his shirt, and his left arm hung limp at his side, but his aim didn’t waver. “Muse, I can’t let you go,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “You’re a danger to yourself and others.”

Tearing my gaze away from him, I focused ahead, into the park, and the trees beyond. Launching to my feet, I ran, expecting to hear the crack of a bullet at any moment, the sudden flash and burn of a bullet piercing flesh, but it didn’t happen. He let me go.

T
here were places in Boston
—and in most capital cities—that an Enforcer only went if they were looking for trouble, like sending a cop into gang territory. I knew about the demon sanctuaries: parts of the city that harbored arriving demons, acclimatizing them to this world, but they were beyond my pay grade. I’d never visited one before. That was about to change.

I had a measly amount of cash in my pocket, a gun with limited ammo, and an unreliable elemental issue. Where else could I have gone? The Institute would lock me up and knock me out. They’d run tests from which I might never wake up. No thanks. At least the demons kept it simple. Yes, they all wanted me dead. A half-blood was about as low in the demon food-chain as you can get. There was probably a bounty on my head for killing my owner (despite the fact he was still alive) and for taking down a Prince of Hell. But I could use my reputation as armor. They would know my name, and would think twice about tackling me, at least to begin with. A half-demon, trainee Enforcer in demonville, without her demon, had about as much chance of surviving as a kitten in a lion’s den.

The Voodoo Lounge is the sort of backstreet club that tried very hard to be trendy but fell just short of the mark. Bathed in neon lights, it wasn’t shy about its presence. Inside white plastic glowed beneath ultraviolet light, and multicolored light rained across split level dance floors.

I slipped unnoticed into the crowd and ordered a drink at the bar. The congregation on the dance floor rippled to the dance music. Demons masquerading as humans moved differently than the real deal. They didn’t waste energy. A human woman might tap her nails against the bar to the music, for example, but a female demon wouldn’t bother unless it served a purpose. In the company of others, they sprang into motion, but a demons liquid gestures and smooth stride give them away. They’re good though. You have to know what to look for. Demons have spent just as long pretending to be us as we’ve walked upright on this earth.

The crowd at the Voodoo Lounge was perhaps eighty percent demon and all dressed in human suits. The crowd moved in one heaving mass of bodies, like a flock of birds evading a predator. It was surreal and deeply disconcerting.

The Institute could shut places like the Lounge down only when the clientele were caught breaking the law. It was a losing battle. Another demon gathering point would open up down the street within weeks.

I was there because I needed someone outside of the Institute who could figure out why my element was on the fritz.

“Hello, sweet thing.” The woman who leaned casually against the bar beside me was the sort of beautiful bought beneath a surgeon’s knife and just as fake. If the flawless latte tone of her skin and plump kiss-me-quick lips didn’t trigger a few mental alarms, her iridescent eyes would have. Her navy blue trouser suit was tucked around an hourglass figure and flared over shapely hips. Stiletto heels hitched her height up a few more unnecessary inches so that she towered over my petite frame. Her dark hair, pinned back from one side of her face, exhibited an electric blue streak.

My skin prickled. I didn’t need a sixth sense to know she was demon. Too beautiful to be real, she didn’t exist in the same world as the rest of us. If I’d had my demon, I could have extended an elemental touch—a demon handshake—and gauged what sort of demon she was. But all I had to go on was my gut reaction.

“Don’t I know you?” Her words rolled syrup-like off her lips.

“Maybe,” I smiled and took a sip of my drink. Fear would get me killed. Demons smell it, taste it on you, and it drives them wild. Chaos adores fear. “You might be able to help me. I’m looking for a doctor.”

Her plucked eyebrows arched. “Does this look like a clinic?” She flicked long pianist fingers at the crowd before curling them back into her palm. I suspected her claws would be sharp.

Things were still at the light-hearted let’s-check-each-other-out stage, but I knew they could turn sour at the wrong word or gesture. My human senses were beginning to sound all sorts of alarm bells. I knew demons. I’d spent the majority of my life among them. Something about her felt different and not in a good way.

I held her gaze, watching a smile writhe across her lips. To her, I was little more than a bug. She might even have been considering squishing me, but she probably also mulled over the chances of the Enforcers finding out.

“Are you a cop?” She leaned closer.

“Not exactly. I don’t want any trouble. I just need some help.”

“How about you tell me your name?” The tip of her tongue slid across her lips.

A lie could get me killed as quickly as fear. My intentions here were amiable, and intentions are key when negotiating with demons. “My name is Muse.”

A single eyebrow jumped, and the corner of her lips hooked up. “Oh.” She threw a glance over my shoulder before dragging her attention back to me. “I can help you.”

I didn’t dare turn around to see what or who she’d been looking at. This was between me and her. “What’s your name?”

“Carol-Anne.” She extended her delicate hand. I took it in mine and winced as she clamped her fingers closed. “Nice to meet you, Muse.” She grinned, flashing perfectly white teeth behind blood-red lips.

I followed her through the crowd, acutely aware of eyes turning on me as we walked. So far, so good. I was still alive and hadn’t yet had to prove I could cut it among the killers. Had this been the netherworld, I’d have been fighting for my life from the start. Thankfully, things are done a little differently on this side of the veil.

Carol-Anne invited me to sit in a mezzanine lounge suspended above the crowd. It was no coincidence that we looked down on the heaving throng of customers. Intention, remember. Demons have a purpose for everything. This balcony view was a declaration of status on her part. She either owned this club or was among the higher echelons of those who did.

Draping her body in the corner of a plush couch, she patted the cushion beside her and crossed her legs. “Sit.”

We were alone and tucked out of sight. She could quite easily dispatch of me without anyone ever knowing. I’d disappear. No family for the Institute to send a note to thanking them for their sacrifice. Just poof. Gone.

“Sit,” she said again, this time more forcefully.

I perched on the edge of the couch cushion, angled so I could leap up and dash down the stairs. Maybe I was being paranoid, but half demons who weren’t paranoid were already dead.

As satisfied as a cat curled on its favorite cushion, she blinked slowly. “I know who you are,
Muse
. Nobody forgets a name like that. Named by your old owner, I hear. As though you inspired him. Is that right?”

Not many demons knew that. “It’s true.”

“What is it about you that could inspire, I wonder?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised.”

Her laughter trickled through the air like water in a brook. “I’m sure I would be. Tell me, Muse, why are you here?”

“There’s a demon doctor around here, goes by the name of Jeremiah, or Jerry. I need to speak with him.”

“Why?”

The music and the noise from the crowd rose and fell below us like the sound of waves crashing on a beach, but they could have been a million miles away. Our little suspended corner of the club felt comfortable, close, and homey, the sort of place you’d curl up with a good book. Whatever power she had, it worked on me, easing beneath my mental armor and evicting my concerns.

“That’s between Jerry and me.”

She grinned. “Jerry answers to me. If you want something from him, you come through me. He’s also very precious. Demons are often
mistreated
at hospitals. They don’t know whether to patch us up or call a priest. Plus, our kind has a tendency to… lash out when misunderstood. Jerry is a valuable asset, not just to me, but for the entire demon community. I will not have him put in harm’s way, and given your history, I’m inclined to protect him...from you.”

It was my turn to smile. “I’m not all bad.”

Her grin faded, and her eyes cooled. “Half-blood turned Enforcer? You’re about as bad as they get. You’ll be lucky to leave here alive unless I escort you out.”

Oh. I pinched my lips closed. “Look, I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I need his help.”

“What’s in it for me?”

I only had the clothes on my back and about five dollars in my pocket to bargain with. There was something else... I closed my hand around the jet-injector in my pocket—PC34—and plucked it from my pocket. The size of a spool of thread, it didn’t look like much, but it packed a devastating punch. A quick jab to exposed flesh, and the demon who found themselves on the receiving end would soon be face down in the dirt.

“Is that what I think it is?” Her eyes widened, and her tongue darted across her lips.

“Just the one.” She reached out a hand. I pulled back. “Take me to Jerry, and you can have it.”

Carol-Anne’s eyes narrowed, and something liquid swirled in her irises. “You have a deal.”

I
t had rained
while I’d been inside the Voodoo Lounge. The club’s garish neon lights reflected in the parking lot puddles. The rain had since stopped, replaced by a foggy drizzle swirling around the streetlights. I tucked my hands into my pockets and walked beside Carol-Anne. She stepped around potholes, her dainty stilettos staying dry. My boots didn’t warrant such careful footwork.

I dropped behind her as we crossed the parking lot and passed between two panel vans. The van door to my right slid open. I snapped my head up, caught sight of the two heavies in the back, and tried to lurch away. A gnarled hand struck out and wrapped around my upper arm. A fractured cry of alarm puffed from my mouth as he dragged me off my feet and into the back of the van. Another hand smothered my nose and mouth. I tried to bite down, but a strip of duct tape pressed across my mouth. I reached for my gun and felt their hands riding roughshod over me. My fingers fumbled against the grip. The gun snatched away, leaving my fingers stinging.

I lashed, kicked, thrashed, and bucked. My heel crunched against something semi-soft and I heard one of the men curse.

“For hells-sake, she’s half the size of you two.” Carol-Anne loomed in the van’s doorway. Her impressive
Cosmopolitan Magazine
silhouette rippled in the low light as it peeled away to reveal her true appearance. The gray-skinned demon stood maybe six feet, her body elongated, limbs gangly, ribs protruding. Her fingers were narrow talons, like crabs’ legs. Water bubbled up through open pores and trickled over her flesh. Great, a water elemental. And there I was without my demon.

She slammed her hand into my chest and pinned me down between her two henchmen. Her rigid lips parted. Rows of piranha-like teeth bristled in her mouth. A fin fanned down her back, its barbed points dripping a viscous substance.

I tensed to kick, but she wrapped her spindly fingers around my thigh.

“It’s in her pocket,” she gurgled. Water dribbled from her lips and splattered onto my chest.

I tried to buck again, but my arms were pinned to the van floor. I couldn’t move. All I could do was glare, and I made damn sure Carol-Anne read my intentions in my eyes.

She laughed, a tinkling wet sound like water bubbling from a tap. “What a disappointment you turned out to be.”

Calling my demon did nothing. I hadn’t really expected her to come, but it was worth a try, considering my element’s behavior the night before.

One of her guys found the injector. She snatched it from him with a liquescent cry. “Tie her up. She’s another’s property. He’ll want her back.”

Panic flushed through my veins. Did she mean Damien? Adrenalin sparked off all number of instinctual fight or flight reactions. My element finally came, rolling out of the dark void inside me like a backdraft devouring the insides of a building. In one great heave of chaotic energy, fire burst over my skin and ignited the two men flanking me. Their screams fuelled my fury.

Carol-Anne recoiled. The air quivered with heat and vaporized her liquid sheen. Her gray skin tightened around her bones like shrink wrap. Steam bellowed between us. All of my demon came then. She thundered toward me, a heaving malevolent darkness bursting from obscurity to expand every cell in my human body with her hunger. The pressure of her rising up severed my grip on reality. She evicted my humanity with one backhanded mental blow. My conscious thoughts fell back. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did; she tore through me with no regard for my sanity. It was wrong. We were one and the same, but she came at me—through me—as though I was the enemy.

My one ruined wing burst from my back and stretched outward to butt up against the van roof. My demon embraced my body with flames, superimposing her smoldering flesh over mine, blurring the lines between my normal appearance and hers. She devoured the fragility of my body, driving steel rods of power through my body.

I swung my glare toward the wide-eyed Carol-Anne as the tape over my mouth melted away. I could kill her. The demon in me, she wanted it. Death. Destruction. Chaos. But it wouldn’t stop there. She wanted them all dead. Everyone. Everything. I felt her summon warmth from the buildings around us and the earth below us. If I didn’t rein her in, she’d call it all, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could stop her from using it. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

I sprang from the back of the van and slammed into Carol-Anne, knocking her back against the other van. She wailed as flames burned across her skin. Torrential rain began to pound us from above. It fizzled and hissed against my sweltering flesh.

I wrapped my hand around her throat and squeezed. My wing stretched high behind me, funneling the fire skyward. “Take. Me. To. Jerry.” I snapped each word through clenched teeth while desperately clinging on to the one tiny thread of control I had left.

She nodded.

I released her and stumbled away.
Burn them. Burn it all.

My whole life, I’d walked a line; it’s called control. Sometimes, it was obscured by so much emotional debris, I could barely see it, but it was always there. If you understand that chaos, by its very definition, is uncontrollable, then you’ll realize the line was everything to me. If I stepped off, just for a second, the lure of chaos would sink its claws in, and I’d be free. Chaos desires freedom. It abhors control. I couldn’t afford to let it win.