Pandora's Box (5 page)

Chapter Nine

Phoenix insisted on carrying Amos downstairs for her since she refused to let her son out of her sight for longer than a few minutes at a time. He settled Amos on the sofa, and she tucked a throw around his legs.

“Thanks. He sleeps a lot.” She worried her bottom lip with her top teeth. Sleeping blissfully, he reminded her of the child he’d been, not the one that displayed hellfire colored eyes and went Jason on someone’s ass—normally her ass. “More than usual.”

“We’ll figure this out, Madison.” Phoenix squeezed her shoulder in a reassuring gesture; his touch electrified her with sexual awareness. There couldn’t be a worse time to delve into a hot and fast romance. Terribly inappropriate when her focus should be on her son. Not that she’d ever been involved in a hot and fast romance anyway. Micah claimed the title of her one and only lover.

James entered the room, cell phone pressed to his ear, and Madison stepped out of Phoenix’s reach. The older man studied Amos as he talked, and disconnected the call with an agitated snap.

“Something wrong?” Phoenix asked.

Laughable question. Aside from a child who’d gone psychotic, demon hunting strangers in her home, and a Mimicker her child dismissed as casually as he dismissed his vegetables, she thought the question blasé. Could anything scarier go wrong?

“Georgie is certain we’re dealing with a demon.”

“Perfect.” Phoenix’s tone held a wealth of sarcasm in his tone. “What kind of demon? Shifter? A Plague demon doesn’t fit.”

Did the world just rotate off its axis because it sure as heck shifted beneath her feet. There was more than one type of demon? She slumped into a chair, dropped her face into her hands, and rested her elbows on her knees.

“One of the Kings,” James said.

“A King?” Raw fear flavored Phoenix’s voice, and Madison studied his behavior.

She detected the hesitant glance James shot in her direction. Apparently things could get scarier. Madison felt the blood drain from her face. “Talk frankly. I want to know all of it, even the worst.”

Phoenix nodded his head at his uncle. James’s phone vibrated, he flipped it open to peek at caller ID, and must have decided whoever called could wait, because he pressed a button and the phone silenced. James rubbed his forehead with his fingers before speaking, “A demon King is one of the original fallen angels who sided with Lucifer against God.”

“I don’t believe in God.” She spoke the thought aloud. Maybe if she continued to not believe in God, repeated it often and loudly, demons couldn’t be real either, and all of this would go away. Denial kept Amos from getting help the first time—if anyone could call what she received actual help.

“Well, He believes in you, Madison.” James gave her a piercing stare. “You need to get with the program fast, or things are going to go to hell faster.”

She shot to her feet. “You can’t just tell me to believe in God and expect it to happen?” If it’d been that easy, her father would have saved her soul.

“Not believing helped get you in this mess,” Phoenix interjected.

She swung her glare to him. “Now it’s my fault?”

“That’s not what I meant.” He crossed his arms over his chest and widened his stance, his eyes holding hers. “Demons prey on those with the strongest ties to God. Makes their conversion all the sweeter.”

“I just told you, I don’t have any ties to God.”

“Yeah.” He tossed a glance at his uncle, canted his head to the side, and waggled his eyebrows as if to say she had him there.

“That’s the part that makes no sense.” James flipped his phone open once more, hit a button and clipped it back to his belt, again, obviously dismissing the caller.

Phoenix threaded his fingers through his spiky hair. “None of this makes sense. And a King? Seriously? We don’t know how to defeat one of them.”

Madison’s attention shifted between the men.

James nodded and grunted. “Yeah, a King, and I know it’s going to be ambitious to kill one. We need to identify the King before we can decide anything else.”

That didn’t sound promising at all. “I thought you conducted all your demon tests on Amos already?”

The Birmingham men shared some more glances, their silent communication starting to irritate her.

“You did the holy water stuff, the gadget with the lights, some type of exorcism, and none of it worked. You said a demon wasn’t involved.”

“We performed all the tests to prove he’s not possessed by a demon.” Nix shifted his weight and held her direct gaze. “He’s not possessed, but that doesn’t rule out demonic interference.”

“There are a lot of missing pieces to this puzzle,” James admitted, and he appeared none too happy with the admission.

No kidding—it was one big puzzle piece for her, too.

“But we’re not giving up,” Phoenix said, his stare impassioned.

Madison noted James remained silent. “Maybe you should, Phoenix.”

Gage and his girlfriend entered the room. Keys dangled from his fingers. They were headed elsewhere. Good option.

“You just said you didn’t know how to defeat a demon King. There’s no point in you four going down with us.”

The expression on Phoenix’s face—furrowed brow, heavy lines between his eyes, and a grimace worthy of scaring demons—oh, yeah, he could pummel something into a bloody mess right about now. “I’m not giving up,” he bit out between clenched teeth.

“Fine.” She sent the rest of the group a hesitant glance. None of them said a word, just curiously watched. “Your blood is on your hands.”

Phoenix shoved his fingers through his hair, giving his spiky, disheveled locks a more natural flow. “Just the way I like it.” He sent her a snarky grin and went back to business. “Now, I need Micah’s case files.”

Chapter Ten

Nix braced the hotel curtain back with his forearm and stared up at the late afternoon sky. Clouds bloomed like overlapping black cotton on the horizon, an ominous sight as it approached the southern city liquid fast. His gut twisted as lightening zipped across the horizon and arced to the Earth.

“I think something’s coming.”

He could hear the swish of the pages Zo turned in one of their handy-dandy Sherlock supernatural guidebooks, and Gage rifled through the mounds of paperwork from Micah’s legal case files that Madison had given them.

“Yeah, I noticed the approaching thunderstorm about thirty minutes ago,” Zo said.

Nix paused and waited while a bright spark zigzagged through the heavens. “There’s no thunder.”

Gage ripped his attention from Micah Wescott’s legal files long enough to say, “It’s a cold front, Nix. Alabama’s known for its nasty weather in the spring.”

“This is more.” He couldn’t explain it, but the atmosphere felt more malevolent. “Looks like a demonic omen.”

Felt like a demonic omen, too, but he didn’t add that part because he couldn’t explain how the storm felt different from other squalls. Maybe the static electricity in the air blipped his radar as more wicked than a generic thunderstorm. He turned to look at them, gnawing on the inside of his cheek. Worry for their charges tied a thick knot of dread in his abdomen. “We shouldn’t have left her. We—”

Gage glanced up. “Her?”

Nix continued “—should have taken her offer to sleep in one of her extra rooms.”

“We have a he and a she to protect. What’s your obsession with this chick anyway? Besides the fact she’s hot.”

Uncomfortable with the probing question, he ignored it.

“So, so hot,” Zo agreed.

Nix rolled his eyes. As far as he knew, Zo had never experienced a lesbian encounter in her life. Hearing her agree now went down as just weird in his book. Even Gage shot her a surprised double take.

Zo didn’t seem to notice either of their reactions. “He’s right, you do seem abnormally attached.” She placed her hand in the book to save her spot and lifted her gaze to him.

“I’m not attached or obsessed.” He clucked his tongue. Really, he needed to know Madison Wescott a little better before he could say if he ‘liked’ her. He admired her temerity, but he could say the same about people he immensely disliked. “They just need our protection.”

“Hey, Nix, I thought Madison’s husband’s name was Micah Wescott?”

“Yeah, so?”

Gage folded back several pages of a legal document to curve over the staple binding the sheets together and held them up. “He signs everything Micah Dominus.”

They fell silent, absorbing the information. The air in the room grew stale and thick with the ramifications.
Dominus…shit!
That was more than an omen. The lightening lengthened in intensity.

Although unlikely he’d need his jacket in this insane southern spring heat, Nix snatched it off the chair. And now, with a storm brewing, it’d be muggy, too. “You’ll find me at Madison Wescott’s house.”

***

Beliel stepped out of the torrential rain onto the porch. As he rounded the corner of the deck, he spotted the vehicle and froze mid-step, automatically blanking his presence as he lowered his foot. Whipping his gaze up and down the street, he saw no other cars parked curbside.

Movement behind the driver’s side window caught his attention. He smirked at the old-fashioned stakeout and adjusted his vision to hone in on the man’s features. Phoenix Birmingham. Known widely in the demonic community as a very skilled Sherlock for having not only the talent to kill supernatural creatures, but the balls to scout them out of hiding. The rest of the Birminghams were just as bad.

Beliel shouldn’t have been disappointed to find Phoenix as incognito as a cheap whore on the Vegas strip, but he was. He should have been amused, since he expected this particular Sherlock to have better hunting dexterity than other lesser-known trappers, but he wasn’t.

Goddamn pestilence! Every last one of them was a demonic disease. He’d rid the world of the entire species as soon as he sat on the World Throne. He’d deal with this one soon enough, and make it oh-so-much more painful for breathing the same air as Madison and Amos. Right now, Beliel came for the woman and child. And the mortal wasn’t a threat. A nuisance, yes, but he posed no risk. Not tonight. He snorted. Not ever to someone of his ilk.

He strode boldly to the front door. Power twinkled from his palm like a firework sparkler, and the deadbolt grated open. Humans and their pathetic security measures; they needed protective charms to guard against demons, not simple locks. Soon Madison and Amos wouldn’t need protection. Then humanity’s blood would run like rivers, turning the soil red, and from it, his kingdom would flourish.

The door opened without a sound, and he easily maneuvered up the stairs in the dark to the bedroom. Amos lay curled on his side next to Madison on the bed. Lightening flickered through the window long enough for him to see she wore yellow panties and a pale green sleeveless tank top. She lay on top of the covers, hair haloing her head like a gold coronet, one arm thrown over her head, the other resting on her stomach. His appreciative gaze caressed her long legs with demonic electrical energy.

Soon he’d part her shapely thighs and fuck her, remind her again she was his, forever his. Only his. And he’d make sure she understood calling in Phoenix Birmingham bordered on treachery.

Approaching the bed with silent tread, Beliel stared at the two subjects. They meant everything to him, both equally important to his ultimate purpose. Kneeling beside Amos, he twirled his finger and deepened Madison’s sleep. “Amos.” Blue eyes fluttered open, instantly awake at his call. “Hungry?”

Amos nodded his head, scrunched the covers down, and scooted up into a sitting position. Holding his hands up, Beliel waggled the fingers on his right hand and his nails lengthened into sharp, dark red claws. He pressed the tip of a nail against his left wrist, and black blood bloomed, as thick and gooey as tar. With rounded eyes, Amos stared at the substance. His breathing grew reedy and awkward, much too fast, like a sprinter at the end of an arduous marathon. Like a torpedo, Amos launched across the bed, wrapped tiny fingers around Beliel’s wrist and smashed his mouth to the wound.

Beliel smiled and petted Amos’s head as the child slurped the dark hemoglobin.

***

Madison jerked awake, unsure what had disturbed her peaceful dreams. A rarity for nightmares not to plague her, she tried going straight back to sleep, but something dragged her from the edge once again.

Lightening crackled outside the window and a long, weary sigh whistled through her lips. The thunderstorm probably woke her. The weatherman had forecast a balmy, unusually warm spring evening, not rain.

She blinked, peering around her midnight darkened bedroom, the sound of heavy rain hitting the roof. Eh…the weatherman just got it wrong. Again. Nothing new in the macabre southern weather.

Madison rubbed her itchy nose and stretched. Halfway through the stretch, her breath froze in her lungs as a black shape shifted and loomed over her. White holes resided where eyes, nose, and mouth should be located. She opened her mouth to scream; nothing but gurgling noises erupted.

The apparition smiled, exposing white teeth. No, they were better described as pointy fangs.

Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare!
Only in her nightmares were screams suppressed.

Wake up, wake up, wake up!

Nothing changed.

She pinched her thigh and winced. Not a nightmare.

Thunder boomed as she found her voice and screamed. A cackle came from the shape. Her heart threatening to pound out of her chest, she reached for Amos and found empty sheets. Turning her back on the intruder forced a knot of queasiness to settle in her stomach, but she had to find her son and protect him!

Whirling about, she located Amos as he slipped off the edge, and with soft, childish steps, plodded around the end of the bed.

“No!” She scrambled toward him, but he ran out of her reach and stood beside the dark specter. Keeping one eye on Amos and the other on the presence, she held her arms out to him and prayed he’d follow her instructions. “Amos, come to me.”

He didn’t.

“Red rover, red rover, send Daddy right over,” Amos chanted, eyes flaming burnt orange around the edges, and in the darkness, the demon color surfaced brighter than normal. “Hellfire, hellfire, send Daddy right over.”

A warm breeze hit her skin and coupled with the chilling second stanza; together they bubbled her flesh with shivers of dread. Who knew the lines to a kid’s game could sound so gruesome?

“In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to depart!” Where’d that come from? From the recesses of her childhood apparently, proof she’d been listening with at least half an ear to her father’s preaching.

Unfortunately, the Christian command proved ineffective on this creature. He chuckled, and she got the sick impression he sent an amused wink to her son. She abhorred the idea of them sharing secret jokes. Amos smiled up at the figure that grew more distinct by the minute. His body solidified, but his face remained blurry. Something dangled about his neck, a crystal of some sort.

“Get away from my son!”

A black arm reached out and tangled powerful fingers in her hair, dragging her across the mattress. She struggled, but her efforts were useless. Strands pulled from their roots. At the edge of the bed, he yanked on her tresses and forced her to her knees before him. The position was too servile for her liking. She refused to look up at him for fear he’d perceive it as subservience.

She clawed at his arm with her nails. He backhanded her. With his hand tangled in her locks, her head remained steady, taking the full brunt of his strike. The copper taste of blood flooded her mouth, and she gagged as she swallowed the fluid.

He slapped her again. No point in that one apart from amusing himself, since she’d ceased to struggle. Once more for good measure. Her teeth shredded the inside of her cheek, until she choked on the blood in her mouth. She spewed the fluid all over them. When the coughing subsided and she could breathe without feeling like she attempted to suck liquid air into her lungs, she glared up at him, hatred boiling in her belly. Even so close, she could not discern his features, but, she could make out her blood marking his face. This was just…odd.

He stunk to high heaven. Putrid as if he’d risen from the grave, yet he seemed robust. His strength sure as heck proved his heartiness.

His tongue flicked out and licked her blood off his lips and chin. Bile rose to the back of her throat, but she forced it back.

“Mm…Mm…Good to the last drop.” Great, a supernatural creature quoting commercials. “I’ll have more of you soon,” he said. “That’s a promise, Madison.”

Over her dead body!

That’s what he means, you imbecile!

“Run, Amos, run!”

The creature smiled, displaying those eerie, razor-sharp teeth. Amos remained rooted at the creature’s side. He continued to look up at her with a soft, childish smile on his face.

Her attacker’s eyes glinted with the stark intensity of flames. Burnt orange, just like Amos’s when he lost control, only the demon’s sparkled with such vibrancy, her eye sockets ached.

Not freaking human! She’d had enough of these supernatural monsters coming into her home!

Madison let loose another scream. Where the heck were the Birminghams? She thought they were there to protect her. They’d traded her guest bedroom for a hotel room. Fled, more likely. She couldn’t blame them, she’d flee, too. Any sane person would.

So, not the time to be thinking of this, Madison!

The demon dragged her hard against his granite-like, immoveable chest, knocking the breath from her lungs with their sudden impact. Demon or not, buff beneath his clothing and as unforgiving as concrete, those physical assets terrified her more. She couldn’t compete with his strength.

Not even an inhalation moved his rock hard pecs. Testament that he didn’t live, or rather evidence he didn’t need air to live. If that wasn’t enough to prove he was dead, she held her breath, trying to block out his stench. The action failed miserably as his atrocious odor caused her eyes to water.

“I’ll provide you security and safety, make you Queen of all Nations. All you need do is consent to come with me now.”

Queen of all Nations, huh? What an amazing offer. Kind of like winning the lottery without buying a ticket. She guessed it came with a high price.

A familiar cant stained his voice, yet a gruff unfamiliarity marred it at the same time. Fire eyed or not, buff or not, offering the world or not, he was in her home uninvited, and he stank to high heaven. She sucked in a breath to scream again.

He slammed his mouth over hers, slicing her upper lip against her teeth and cutting off any sound she might have executed. The hand in her hair twisted her head to the side, and he deepened his demonic kiss. His tongue swished inside and flicked across hers, her bleeding mouth making their connection wet and slippery.

Madison grunted and squirmed, slapped and punched, attempting to break free. None of her efforts worked. So, she bit down on his tongue and gagged on his thick, sludgy blood.

He jerked backward and an outraged bellow struck her face, the stench knocking the breath from her lungs. Holding her steady by her hair, his other hand wrapped around her throat and constricted. Awful strangled sounds came from her, as he squeezed tighter and tighter until she thought he’d crush her windpipe.

Amos
….

Darkness edged her vision as jagged lightening haloed his silhouette. His grip intensified while thunder rattled the windows. If he murdered her, Amos would be all alone with him.

She struggled to lift her arms and rake her nails down his face, but they weighed too much to maneuver accurately. They ended up banging against her thighs like a loose window shutter in a vicious thunderstorm.

In the moments before she thought death would claim her, his face transformed with concise clarity. All thought froze; shocked beyond comprehension, she couldn’t believe her eyes. His identity couldn’t be right.