Drowning In The Dark: #4 The Veil Series (9 page)

“
W
hat the hell was that
?” Adam sat rigid behind his desk, leaning forward, face the picture of frustration. “What did he do?”

I arched an eyebrow. “I would have thought that was obvious.” The lingering sensation of his
gift
tingled on my lips. Adam had marched me down the hall to his office as soon as I’d left Akil’s cell.

“Don’t treat me like a fool, Muse. You’re in my world now. The temp-sensors in the room spiked. He still has power.”

Well, duh
. I rubbed at my forehead. “I think it’s contained inside him. His power, I mean. You can’t expect your science to subdue chaos, Adam. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Did he give you power? Do I need to restrain you?”

Akil had done something. Given me power? Subdued Damien? How was I supposed to explain the existence of Damien to Adam? As soon as I said I was possessed, he’d lock me up and throw away the key. “Forget about me. You heard what he said. There are bigger issues here. You need to get your half bloods on the streets. Val’s coming. The veil might collapse.”

“Valenti? Your brother is behind this?”

Dammit. “So, I’ve been told.”

“By whom? Who’s your contact?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Okay, Adam had gone from angry to outright suspicious. His eyes widened. He dropped back into his chair and stroked a thumb across his bottom lip. “I can’t trust you. I have your Prince of Hell lover feeding you power, and now you tell me your brother is about to launch an attack on Boston. You seem to be at the center of this nightmare.”

And he didn’t know the half of it. “Akil didn’t give me power.” That was a lie. I could feel it, the spark of fire burning inside. Not my demon, but I sure had the beginnings of my element, probably enough to trigger the chain reaction Jerry had spoken of, maybe enough to flush PC34 from my veins. “Look, it doesn’t matter. You need to call all your resources to Boston.”

“Why here?” He sent his gaze about the room, his focus wavering as his analytical mind tried to find solutions. “Why Boston?”

“I don’t know. The fine dining and excellent retail facilities?” Adam glared, clearly not in the mood for sarcasm. With a sigh, I admitted, “I suspect it has something to do with the king.”

“Tell me everything.”

“If Akil was telling me the truth, then there’s a King of Hell, who’s hiding in Boston. Akil was…” If I told Adam I suspected Akil of being said king, he’d likely fill Akil’s cell with gas and knock him out cold for further tests.
Bye-bye, Akil.
“He told me that the king is like the anti-chaos. He’s control. The queen—chaos personified—thought she had killed him. The princes then killed the queen.
Voila
, the Seven Princes of Hell get all the juice. But Akil ferreted the king away and has protected him since.”

“If we can get our hands on the king, he could stop this?”

“Well, yeah, but he’s also the King of Hell. So, y’know… He could just as likely take Boston for himself. And the rest of our world, for all I know. Akil probably knows everything, but he won’t tell you, Adam. Not for anything. You may as well let him go. He’s no use to anyone in there.”

Adam stewed on my words. His shrewd gaze wasn’t comforting. In fact, I wondered as he glared at me, if I might be summoning Akil’s gift of fire in the next breath. I angled myself toward the door, should I need to make a quick exit.

“The half bloods aren’t ready. The boy, Delta, shows promise, but...” He shook his head. His shoulders bowed, and a tired, uncertain, man looked back at me.

I swallowed and looked away. Adam might have obedient pets as half bloods, but they weren’t going to do him any good strapped to examination tables. He believed Stefan and I were failures. But what he neglected to see was how Stefan and I were powerful while his docile pet half- bloods were probably little more than eager puppies. Adam’s fatal mistake was trying to control chaos. You can’t force chaos and control together. They are mutually exclusive. I was beginning to realize that myself. I continued to try to control my demon, but it was a losing battle. Akil had said I needed to be demon to defeat my brother.
His lust will destroy the human in you.
There was no escaping my fate.

“Val has half bloods, Adam, and given how they’ve been raised beyond the veil, I doubt they’re the docile creatures you have hidden in your science-lab. Val knows half bloods. He’s always been the one holding their leashes. His half-bloods will be rabid, terrifying beasts quite capable at leveling Boston at his command.”

Adam nodded, regret turning his lips down. “We know of Valenti’s expertise in that area. I circumvented him myself when we first bargained for you, Muse.” Adam had tried to make a deal with a demon for me, but it had gone wrong. Val found out and stopped it. I was sold to the demons instead. We all knew how that turned out. “Stefan was tasked with learning more and potentially neutralizing Valenti, but his mission was shelved when it became clear he was no longer viable.”

I bit my tongue, battling old arguments. “Adam. For once, can we just put all the history aside? People are dying. They’ll die in the thousands. We’re among the handful who can do something about it. For whatever reason, I’m in the middle of it. I share the same element as my brother. I can use that. Let me help. All of me. Give me the antidote. Let me talk to your half bloods and see if I can rally them. We have a few days. Would you just let me be me? You wanted a half-blood weapon, and you’ve got one, but you gotta work with me, not against me.”

His fawny eyes softened, and I saw something of the man behind the Institute, maybe even the father Stefan never had. He stood slowly, almost graceful. “I’m sorry.”

The door behind me swung open. I shoved from the chair, turning, and reaching for the little flame burning within. Taser prongs punched into my chest.

I
should have wagered
with Ryder.
What are the odds of the Institute locking me up?
He’d have laughed and told me only idiots bet on odds like that.

I woke in the muted light of the science lab, restraints fixing me to the bed.
Well, shit.
I took stock of my surroundings. I was alone. An IV drip-fed clear liquid into my veins, probably laced with PC34. The room was all spearmint and white, typical Institute neutrality. I snarled, mostly at myself for thinking Adam would ever listen to me. A flicker of heat licked at my insides. A smile crawled across my lips. They trusted their science too much. I closed my eyes and stoked the heat, luring it out of the dark. The delicate dance of power shimmied and shied.
Come.
I called to it.
Come back to me.
And in a rush of liquid heat, it did. Fire lashed from my toes to my head, rolling up and over me. I bucked and snatched a gasp. Alarms shrilled. Akil’s scent stroked the rising thrill and drove my soul-parasite back. This element was Akil’s and mine. His gift. As the power swelled, ecstasy raked its nails across my flesh and spilled heat into my core. Demon thoughts poured into my mind, and she came, my darker other half. Elemental energy surged through my veins, turning my skin volcanic black. Fire sizzled beneath my flesh. The restraints melted away, and I fell to the floor, a beast draped in flame. My one ruined wing burst from my back. I stretched it high as I got to my feet and gave it a refreshing flick just as the enforcers stormed the room.

“Hello, boys.” I threw up a veil of heat so intense it burned clear. They fired their semi-auto rifles. Non-etched rounds peppered my shield. It tickled. While they emptied their magazines, I sought out the heat slumbering in the building. This far underground, heat was plentiful. Ducts funneled much of it topside until I reached out to it and pulled it back. Flames licked and danced around me. I raised my arms and marveled at the play of firelight. Yes. This was me. And I was so damn ready to be destruction.

Only when the gunfire stopped, did I remember my audience. I turned my attention back to the squad of enforcers. They didn’t run. I’ll give them that. Had they run, I might not have been able to stop my instincts from demanding I give chase.

“This isn’t possible.” Adam loomed behind them.

I smiled my most friendly demon smile, the one filled with fangs. “Adam, Adam, Adam.” I purred. “When will you stop underestimating me?”

“Fall back,” he ordered his men. He stepped inside the room with his squad crowding the hallway outside. Sweat streamed down his face. Patches of wetness stained his shirt. Was he brave to step in front of his men or just too stubborn to believe I’d hurt him. “Muse, I didn’t want this.”

“Save it.” Predatory hunger bubbled my words.

“Look at yourself. You’re a threat. Just like any Class A demon. I had to get you off the streets.”

“Adam, when will you realize not every demon is your enemy? I’m not a threat to you.”
Right now,
I added silently. Considering how I was all-demon, dripping flame and calling a tide of heat to me, I could understand how he might not believe me. With a shuddering exhale, I shook my demon from my flesh. She snapped and snarled her displeasure, but I gave her the promises she wanted to hear. This wasn’t over. In fact, it had just begun. I shivered, naked. Steam rolled off my pink skin. “Now that we’ve got the inevitable lock-her-up out of the way, shall we talk about this like adults?” I sent out a silent thanks to Akil for his
gift
. Whatever he was planning, he clearly didn’t need my help.

“Sir.” An Enforcer approached from behind Adam. “We have a situation in Charlestown. We need to get you on scene ASAP.” His wide eyes flicked away from me then back again.

I smiled at the both of them.
Yeah, drink it in, fellas. You’re lucky I didn’t burn you and your buddies alive.
A demon purr resonated through me. I let it vibrate at the back of my throat and grinned as my audience tensed. The Mother of Destruction was back.

“Muse, you could have killed my enforcers,” Adam said, “but you didn’t.”

Without Akil’s control, I might have. “Yes, I could have killed you too, and the people behind those cameras, and the techs in the lab down the hall. I feel them, their heat. If I wanted, I could turn their own heat on them, ramp it up, and burn them from the inside out. You’ve heard of spontaneous combustion?” He paled. Good. “Don’t fuck with me again, Adam.”

He nodded once. “Will you help us?”

“Yes, had you been listening, you’d have realized that already, and we could have avoided the…theatrics. Now, can I have my clothes back, please?”

W
e rode back
to Boston in their blacked-out SUVs. The guy forced to sit next to me squirmed and perspired. In the twenty minutes it had taken to leave the facility, the whispers of my power display had spread like wildfire. I’d reached out ethereally to Akil before leaving and felt his well of controlled rage. I didn’t envy anyone on shift when Akil decided the game was over.

As we neared Charlestown, wailing sirens punctured the night. The enforcers rammed in the back of the van with me grew restless. I looked at them, wondering what sort of people they were behind their combat gear. An electric current fizzled between them, a collective fear. They were afraid of me, of what was to come. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t look like much, and given my history, they’d wonder whose side I was on. This truce between me and the Institute was a thin one, liable to snap at any moment.

The van pulled up, and the enforcers unloaded. The last to leave, I jumped out and immediately felt the burn of ice in the air. Dread hardened my gut.
No, please no…
But I only needed to look around the street for the evidence of Stefan’s handiwork. Jagged fans of ice jutted from the edges of tightly packed houses. Snow had drifted in places, piling against closed doors and banking against cars. But in other places, the street was clear. It wasn’t natural snowfall. And certainly, the razor-edged barricades of ice thrust upward out of the ground weren’t in any way normal.

I followed the enforcers as they fanned out down the street. Drops of blood marred the snow in places. In others, gouges scored through the ice. This was a battle site, not one of Stefan’s elemental slips.

We followed the sounds of groaning ice and blades clashing and came to an intersection where the ice had flooded across the road, capturing cars, streetlamps, and benches in crystal. The enforcers ducked down behind cover, signaling to one another. Adam hung back, talking into a radio. Buzzing radio chatter leeched through the quiet.

Screw this.
I wasn’t wasting another second. I rounded the corner and walked into an icy blast of winter. I couldn’t miss Stefan’s beautiful wings sparkling in the mist ahead. The vapor rising off the street whipped and swirled. Hideous growls punctured the artificial quiet, and I caught sight of a massive beast inside the fog. Its furred hide glistened wet with blood and melted ice. I caught fragments of its form—blurs in the fog—like trying to piece a jigsaw together without all the pieces. I knew it was big, as least three times as tall as Stefan. Metal screeched, glass shattered, and the wrecked carcass of a car tumbled out of the mist to land roof down. That was probably my cue to summon my fire, but I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was dealing with.

A howl cut through the melee, so loud I hunkered down, covering my ears. Glancing behind me, I caught sight of the black-clad enforcers scurrying forward before the rolling mist swallowed them up. They were going to get themselves killed. I waved the enforcers back, faced forward, planted my feet, and released my demon. She came hard and fast, staggering me and almost sundering my control. Rage, hot and heady, boiled through my insides, and the latent heat slumbering in the street reared up like a storm surge.
So much for a stealthy approach.
A demon gaze washed over me as though I’d been blasted in the face with hot coals. The vapor hissed and withdrew, revealing the daddy of all hellhounds. Crimson eyes burned with a killer’s glare. The thing was massive, easily the size of a tank. It made little ol’ me look like a chew-toy.
Oh hell.
The lance-like quills protruding from its back rippled, sounding a deafening hiss. Then it lunged, springing off its hind legs, right at me.

Hunkering down, baring teeth, I thrust out my hands, spread my wing, and funneled a blast of heat ahead of me. I could do this. I was the Mother of Destruction, a powerful she-demon who could turn a crowd of demons into ash. This was just one big demon.
Easy.

Stefan plowed into the hound’s side like a missile, altering its course. They tumbled and rolled. Sharp quills and jagged crystal tangled in a heap. Stefan staggered to his feet first. He saw me and held out a hand, shaking his head, indicating I shouldn’t intervene. The hell I was going to sit back and watch.

The hound planted its huge paws and dropped its head, opening its maw to reveal dagger-like fangs. Its lips pulled back in something like a grin. I could have sworn those ruby eyes sparkled with intelligence.

A crack of sniper fire shattered the quiet. Near the cresting rise of Stefan’s left wing, a fist-sized hole blasted through his crystal feathers. He flinched and turned his gaze on the rolling mist behind me. The hound lunged, jaws dropping open, eager to snap shut around Stefan. Instinct had me lashing out with a whip-like tendril of heat. The liquid arc of heat slashed across the hound’s face. It recoiled, threw its snout skyward, and howled like something out of a nightmare. The sound of it plucked on my fear, urging me to run screaming. As the howl died, a deadly quiet rushed in, bearing a new weight, one of impending devastation, as though the city held its breath. I saw them: orbs of red floating in the mist, moving closer. Eyes. Many, many, pairs of demon eyes. This was bad. I tagged a dozen pairs, and all the time, more blinked into existence.

Stefan threw up his hands, palms up, and shot me an incredulous look, as though this was my fault.

I shrugged, raining ashes around me. A blast of hot breath puffed against my wing. I spun, sweeping a wave of fire before me, making quick work of the hellhound that got too close. It wailed and pulled back to the pack spilling out of the mist.
Five, six, no more
. I whipped up a firestorm around me, affording me some protection, and went to work. Caught up in the melee, I couldn’t find Stefan among the wave after wave of quivering flanks of hellhounds, but gauging from the intermittent thunderous howls from the pack-leader, I could assume he was still in the game. I just needed to stay upright. Rifle fire whizzed by me, too close for comfort. I wouldn’t put it past Adam to have his men accidentally shoot me on purpose. They
would
shoot Stefan. He was on the enforcers’ Most-Wanted-Dead List.

I ducked a swipe from glistening jaws and spun, cracking a punch into the beast’s skull. It whimpered and went down, but not for long. Shaking some sense back into itself, it eyed me with a snarl and came at me again.

Time to bring out the big guns. I pinned the pack’s heat on a map inside my mind. At least twenty hounds stalked the mist. Some loitered where I’d last seen the enforcers. There was an oddly vacant patch where the cold sapped them of their heat—Stefan. I avoided him and focused on the demons I could sense. It takes immense composure to stand still and close your eyes when faced with hungry hounds of hell. But I had them now. I cast out my element, hooking it into each burning beacon of hellhound. Once I’d coiled my touch around their heat, I opened the veil between the two worlds with a mental slice, gasped as raw heat washed over me, and then thrust it through my link to the beasts. The ones I’d tagged burst apart in superheated clouds of ash. Demon howls filled the air. Their fear burned my soul, rousing my lust for destruction.

More.

With a flick of my wrist, I lit the others up like fireworks. A click of my fingers—gone. Embers floated in the air like fireflies. I laughed, caught the runners, and burned them from the inside out.
Yes. More.

A huge source of heat loomed out of the mist. Ruby eyes delivered a hungry glare.

The voice, gruff and beast-like, spoke directly into my mind.

I stood my ground and glared up at the hideous face of the pack leader. Its hot, stinking breath blasted me like a furnace. We shared a moment of recognition before I felt the soothing balm of ice coil around me from behind. The beast pulled back and fixed its glare over me, fury flaring bright in its eyes.
That’ll be Stefan behind me then
.

A volley of gunfire rained over us, seemingly from all directions. Several rounds grazed me before I ducked down. The beast flinched, its flanks rippling as the rounds hit home, it yipped—once, twice. A mass of vaporous red tendrils unraveled from inside the beast, knotting around it, and then the beast was gone. The veil snapped closed. It should have been over, but the gunfire rained on, ricocheting off the street.

Stefan. I turned and found him shielding himself by curling his wings around him. Bullets slammed into his ice-armor, sending ice-chips flying. He searched the mist for the shooters but struggled to see them. I knew where they were. I’d tagged them, as I’d done with the hounds. The thirst for the kill stoked the fire of lust in my belly. I gulped the choking urges back, both physical and those in my mind. I had to hold on. Just a little longer.

Stefan’s sharp gaze narrowed. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill the enforcers. It didn’t help that they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him either.

Darkness pulsed through my veins as I crossed in front of Stefan, putting myself between him and the two dozen or so beacons of heat fanning out behind me. Stefan’s eyes blazed. The demon in him glared back at my fire-draped body. His face had hardened as though cut from solid ice. He glared with cold, empty eyes.

A bullet twanged off the road beside us. A warning shot. We both stood too still to be anything but targets. I really didn’t want a bullet in the back of my head, courtesy of the Institute’s finest.

“Stefan…” I kept my voice low, aided by the demon accent. “Don’t.” The oily touch of Damien crept out of its hiding place, seeking my resolve in an attempt to weaken me. “Please.” I couldn’t stay demon for long. Too soon, I’d need to drop the fire or risk losing myself to the chaos. Stefan’s expression twitched. He’d sensed my internal battle. Of course he had. Chaos rushed through his veins.

Stefan’s hand shot out viper-fast and closed into a fist beside my head. I flinched away, about to turn on him, when I heard the crack of sniper fire. He opened his palm and presented me with a perfect ballistic-tipped bullet, captured in ice. It should have warped or exploded, but he’d somehow caught it midflight and deflected the pressure into the ice.

He leaned into me, the frosted tips of his hair melting as my fire lapped at him. “They just tried to kill you, and you want me to let them take a second shot?”

I flicked my gaze up. “Leave them. This isn’t our fight. Not yet.”

The sound of boots crunching in the frozen snowfall bounced around the mist, making locating our hunters virtually impossible. But I could see them in my mind, flanking us on either side, fencing us in. I could end this very quickly. They obviously knew that, hence the kill shot.

Stefan unfurled his glorious wings, sweeping them back with dramatic flare. The barbs chimed as they splayed. He flashed me a bright smile. “It is mine.” He flexed his shoulders and called his ice-armor. Frozen fractals slid beneath his skin, spouting bristles of ice.

“No, Stefan, please.”

He slid his gaze away, summoning a crude lance of ice in his right hand. I couldn’t let him do this. He’d come back looking for help. Well, help was here, and I wasn’t going to let him ruin his chance at ever coming back to himself. I pulled the latent heat into me and shoved it toward him. The air twisted and distorted between us. Then the wave hit him, instantly bowing his glorious wings, sending streamlets of water down his back. He snarled and turned, cocking his head, as though he couldn’t quite believe I would fight him.

I didn’t want to. We’d sparred before. I’d witnessed what he was capable of. Smarter and faster than me, he had all the tricks, all the finesse, whereas I was more of a flood-everything-with-fire kinda gal.

“You wanna do this now? Here?”

The enforcers tightened their circle. “Sure.” I grinned and beckoned him forward while I backed up. “Think you can get through me, Stefan? Because I’m not letting you hurt them.” Holy hell, what was I doing? Taunting a Prince of Hell was never a good idea.

He took the bait and stepped forward, moving toward me while I backed up. The evil passenger sucking on my soul clutched at my heart, sending a bolt of pain through me. I staggered, saw Stefan’s eyes widen, his gaze sharpen, and realized I’d tugged the tail of the tiger quite enough, and ran. The mist parted within a few strides, spitting me out onto a narrow street. The Charlestown timber-clad terraces towered over me, funneling me in the one direction. Head down, wing up, I ran hard. All I had to do was draw him away from the enforcers. Running, I could do. What my demon form lacked in strength, I sure made up for in stamina. The brittle touch of ice nipped at my heels. He was close. Looking back would only slow me down. So now that I’d got him away, what was I supposed to do?

I veered down a tiny alley, barely large enough to drive a car down. Ice galloped along the walls on either side of me, reaching and snapping in my peripheral vision. He wouldn’t hurt me. Would he? My heart raced, pumping acidic darkness through my veins.
The hunt… The chase… Let him come. We will have him. The Winter King is ours.

Something inside me snapped. My control perhaps, at least a part of it. I still ran, still wove my way around trashcans, pounding the street in time with the beat of my heart, but I wasn’t there. Not really. Detached. Cut adrift. I reached for my control and felt it slip through my fingers like the string of a balloon. If I didn’t get it back, it’d be gone for good.

Stefan hit me from behind, simultaneously tackling me, while hooking an arm around me, so he could wrench me off my feet and slam me into a wall. My fire flared. Body numbed by the tackle, I yelped and almost collapsed in on him as the control I’d lost poured back into my body. I was back. What the hell had just happened? Denied, my demon snarled, and the sound rippled my lips.

Stefan leaned into me, forearm pinned against my throat. His element nipped at my flesh, sizzling and spitting against my fiery skin. I met his winter-sky eyes, saw the flash of his fangs behind his victorious grin, and laughed. I’d almost lost it. She—my demon—had gained the upper hand, if only for a few seconds. But it wasn’t her time. Not yet. I’d come back. Giggles tumbled from me.