Taming the Demon (21 page)

The blade’s heat warned him—Compton’s harsh word, the sharp scent of hot metal and the spark of
change—

Devin followed instinct, throwing himself aside—landing heavily, rolling awkwardly...tangling with the side table. His arm stung, in the manner of a paper cut; metal and wood sliced cleanly through the air, embedding in the wall opposite Compton.
Lance.

“Devin,” Natalie said, as urgent as she’d ever been. “He called them
minors—
his blade! He called yours a
major.
It’s stronger than you think!”

And it’s scared witless.

Nothing of the hunter in his mind, only the hunted. Nothing of its predatory ferocity, only an awareness of vulnerability.

Another harsh word from Compton, his hand outstretched—and the lance returned to him, a molten flow finding final form in a strong Roman blade...gladiator’s blade.
Gladius Hispanus,
his own blade whispered at him, wanting nothing to do with it.

Wanting nothing to do with
Compton.

Because Compton had control. Compton and his gutturally harsh words—commanding shape, commanding the moment. Commanding, in some ways, Devin’s own blade. Taking from it, and forcing it to take from Devin.

Natalie was no slouch. She ducked in to snatch up the little table—moving it out of Devin’s way, even as she flung it directly at Compton.

It shattered harmlessly against his outthrust sword, earning a snarl of annoyance, words spoken through gritted teeth. “This is not your fight, Natalie.”

“You are so wrong,” she said, standing braced. “This has been my fight for
years!
”

“Natalie,” Devin said, coming to his feet—his blade’s favored saber in hand, dread in his heart. “No—”

“Then,” Compton said precisely, “it is not your fight anymore.”

“Natalie—”
And Devin saw it coming, and he wasn’t close enough, or fast enough, or strong enough, to do anything other than watch the cold annoyance on Compton’s face—

As he took that Spanish-Roman blade and ran her through.

Not a clean wound, not an instant kill. Battlefield death, slow and grueling. Devin knew it, crying out in anguished denial as Natalie staggered back, hands clutched over blood spilling low on her slender torso.

Compton yanked the sword back and watched with a smug satisfaction as the leaf-shaped blade drank in dark blood, cleaning itself...clearing metal unto gleaming, a spiking flash of lucent movement along its edge.

It was the look he sent Devin that did it.
Was that enough to bring out the fight in you?

Devin choked on grief and fear and fury, forgot he was barely on his feet, forgot his pain and his blade’s reluctance, leaping forward with the saber held just so, balanced in his grip, over Compton’s guard and ready for the strike—

A harsh word, and the blade beneath his own glared hot and flung itself at his ribs, a flanged mace. No power behind the swing—no room for it, no time for it—but heavy metal that thumped into his side and sent the floor up to slam him in the face.

Chapter 22

T
he laugh came low and in his ear. “Come, Devin. Must I torture her through her last moments to bring you into this fight with your whole heart? Or didn’t you ever realize—the fiercer the battle, the deeper the new bond?”

What—?

Words, only words, making no impact against the only driving force left within him. Not the blade.
Natalie.
He retched blood on the intricate carpet, pattern swimming before his eyes, and caught a glimpse of her—fallen against the wall of shelves, clutching the deep wound low in her side, her gaze catching his.
Terror. Understanding.

Resignation.

Damned well
not.

Talk to it,
she’d told him, and he’d flinched from the thought. A coward, losing the moment. The
only
moment.

But resignation?

Damned well
not.

He focused bleary eyes long enough to find her gaze, eyes huge and heartbreaking where light pooled down on her from the skylight. “Come and get me if I get lost,” he told her, and waited just long enough to see those eyes widen with understanding before he sank back down into darkness.

Talk to me,
he told it, clawing to hold on to thought, far too aware that while the blade now kept him alive, it did little else. Silent. Retreating.

It knew what they were up against.

It knew so much more than he did.

Talk to me.

Tell me your name.

Denial. Refusal. Scorn. Its name was not for him.

It
blamed
him, he realized—for the position they were in. For the shackles it feared.

What shackles?

Denial!
It struck back, drawing fire through his bones—making that fragile human body arch with pain.

But answers... The shackles would come from the Triad—that which Compton had every intention of creating. That the major blade would not dominate the two minor blades, but be dominated and controlled by them—and they, in turn, by the single man who wielded them.

A single man who would then wield the combined power of all three.

A man’s only got two hands—

A slap of irritation, an excruciating rake of pain—a body crying out of its own volition—and whispers of awareness, thoughts rising as though they’d been his all along. With a Triad, a man had more than physical weapons. He had subtle influence. He could instill fear; he could incite lust. He could control and manipulate and own, and he could see to it that no one had the means to stop him.

Tell me your name.

Bracing himself for the response did no good. He was dimly aware of his head thumping against the carpet, his body seizing—Compton, frustrated, kicking him—demanding battle.
Craving
it. Natalie’s cry of protest in the background, weak and filtered by veils of reality.

A temper tantrum, held by an entity with power and bitter resentment, acted out on his body. Flailing away at his thoughts, his being...his very awareness of self. It was someone else choking for breath, someone else spitting blood, someone else clawing at the expensive silk carpet with one hand and clutching a preternaturally sharp blade in the other.

Just enough presence of mind left to ask...

What do you want?

Silence. Startled cessation.

And then a flood.

It didn’t want to be in the Triad. It didn’t want to be with Compton. It hadn’t seemed to have cared if Leo lived or died, but now Devin wasn’t even sure of that, now knowing how much Compton had interfered with Leo...how much he’d incited the blade, had turned Leo against his own nature.

And then, in a whisper...an answer. Direct and clear in his mind.

Redemption.

He didn’t understand. Denied it.

Death,
he told it, snarling back.
You want death. You want me to find it for you. You want to corrupt my soul until I do. That’s what you’ve
always
wanted.

The punishing pain was more of a caress, as the blade measured such things. A wash of dull coals, welling up from within, sweeping past the worst of the injuries...stopping the blood. And the words, again, very clear.

I change you.
Or
you change me.

His breath caught on sudden understanding.

Redemption.

A bully of a blade, captured up in itself...nuances he didn’t yet understand, origins he didn’t yet understand...

Waiting for someone to change it for the better, instead of being changed themselves—for the worse.

Even possible?

Faint and haughty negation.

The blade thought not.

But there was a first step. There was the human resisting
being changed.

Devin clung to persistence, to the faint and familiar signs of healing, the blade exhausted, the human exhausted but at least not dying. He gathered his will and he gathered his words and he punched through that final fog.
Tell me your name.

Silence from within. Only the sound of Natalie’s soft, uneven breathing, her faint gasp of pain. Of Compton, hovering, growling with frustration...wanting his fierce, climactic fight, wanting the blade’s ownership sunk deep.

Of Devin’s own harsh breath, his heart hammering out a galloping and unsteady beat, the rush of it through his body.

Until, finally...

Anheriel.

Relief made him as weak as the pain had done. A foothold...
a chance.

Because he now knew enough. He knew what the blade wanted. He knew neither of them wanted Compton to prevail. Neither wanted Devin to die. He could work with that—

And the blade, whispering in his mind.
I am what I am.

Threat without malice. Threat as fact.
Threat as reality.

But someone had him, if not by the throat, by the front of his shirt, there at the base of his throat—lifting him, a gust of rude breath against the side of his face, no little amount of spittle with the vehemence of it. “Fight, damn you! I expected more from you than this! Or do you truly want to hear her agony before she dies? Before
you
die?”

And the blade in his hand, warming, changing...the little brass knuckle knife.
Perfect.
He slammed a blow into the side of Compton’s face, heard the crack of bone—thumped back down to the floor as Compton shouted in surprise and fell away.

First things first.
He wrenched himself to his side, rolled up from there—hands and knee, one leg dragging, over to Natalie. Seeing that even the fear and adrenaline wasn’t keeping away shock—skin gone pale, a fine sheen of sweat dampening the tendrils of hair at her temple, the rest of it fallen loose from its clip, highlights as bright as ever beneath the skylight.

“Triad,” he said. “Gotta stop him, sweetheart. Even this blade knows better.”

“I know,” she said, without any sound behind it—reaching out just long enough to brush him with the ends of her fingers before her hand fell.

God, he wanted to gather her up and kiss the tremble out of those lips and the fear out of those eyes. He
wanted—

Compton cursed behind him. Devin closed his eyes; he turned away. And he barely made it to his feet before Compton staggered back to his own, the elegant lines of his face distorted.

Devin’s saber had returned. He looked at Compton, gave him a grim little smile, and said,
“Anheriel.”

Compton took a sharp breath. Through his teeth, he said, “Congratulations. I hadn’t expected that much of you.”

“Get over it. I haven’t joined you on the dark side of the force. And Anheriel doesn’t want to, either.”

“Anheriel,” Compton breathed. He smiled. “Anheriel won’t have a choice.”

Just as Natalie had never had a choice. Nor Leo. Nor all those others who died in the alleys.

Devin found the strength. He stole it from the blade, he stole it from himself. He closed in on Compton with speed and sparks and flashing light—found Compton, too, had reverted his blade to something long and sweeping, heavier, bearing a wicked trailing point and a sharp swage. A blade that would only need to bite deeply once to finish this fight.

But a slower blade.

And Compton bled.

And Compton tired.

If Devin felt his own energy bleeding away, his good leg growing leaden and his bad stuttering beneath him, he also felt the fire of Anheriel behind him. And Natalie—pulling herself straighter, managing to crouch against the wall—getting out of his way; she was behind him, too.

Swift blows, a parry barely there in time, a beat against Compton’s blade and a quick faltering bind and that broad, heavier sweep reached out to tap him, nicking out flesh from his arm.

Devin blew sweat from his upper lip.
Anheriel—

But the blade, as much as it fought for them, still sought his weak points. Twisted against him, turning him. Yearning for the wild animalistic retribution it had brought out in Leo, those years ago—

Bringing in the fog.

Devin snarled against it, battering Compton back—and the blade surged within him.

I am what I am.

The blade’s nature. As if it could stop itself no more than he could.

“Devin,” Natalie whispered, seeing it. “Oh, God, Devin, fight it!”

But for that, he needed Natalie. And he was losing Natalie. Even in this moment, even as she tried to stay out of his way—

His hand drooped—knuckles clenching white, the fog closing in.

“Devin!” Natalie cried, a thin sound.

I am what I am—

And Compton smiled within that ruined face, streaming blood from a dozen deep wounds, tattered and worn and—

Victorious.

He smiled, and he lifted his blade, and he came on.

“
My
choice!” Natalie cried.

Her hand coming around his waist from behind, that electrifying touch, crystal clear.

Spreading its clarity...fingers firm against his skin, sliding up to rest on his ribs—coming up from beneath his sword arm from behind, reaching out—

Snapping reality back in place, her hand over his on the blade as he raised it, lifting it—a high guard position to slip beneath Compton’s strike as they stepped aside together, thrusting out with the saber—

Parting muscle, cleaving bone...

Stopping a beating heart.

Stopping the world.

Compton’s blades wailed in denial—grieving, howling banshee mad in the strident, rising voice of anguished metal, circling the room to clash and echo and intertwine—

And slap them down.

* * *

Natalie hadn’t expected to open her eyes at all.

Not with the blood spilling out of her body, internally rent and torn and far too much time had passed to do anything about it.

But open her eyes she did.

For a long moment, she did nothing more than that—sorting out the tangle of Devin’s arm beneath her, the sprawl of his body beside her—the sound of his confused groan in her ears.

Alive.

As she was, somehow, alive. Her wound throbbed with an increasing intensity—a burn, and a sudden twitch that made her gasp.

And then, like that, it eased. She found herself breathing again. She found herself thinking again.

She found herself with the urge to close her grip around the cool, textured handle resting loosely within her fingers, and frowned.

That wasn’t right.

She didn’t have Devin’s knife.

She found herself belly-down on the intricate Persian carpet, looking at her own hand where it lay before her face, resting across an unfamiliar knife—strong, straight spine joining directly to the handle of polished antler, no thumb rise over the flat top guard, the long drop quillon brushing her forefinger. Five inches of blade, a drop point and Damascus steel...

Brazilian knife. Hard-working knife for hard-working llama and alpaca herders.

How?

And her belly burned from the inside out, hot whiskey flames firing her mind, and she knew.

“Oh, no,” she said, panic rising as she pushed herself away from the floor and yet somehow couldn’t bring herself to let go of the knife even as she recoiled. “No, no, no. Not me.
Please
not me—”

Baitlia.

Compton’s blade.

Devin groaned, a heartfelt sound, and followed it with a curse—extricating the hand on which she’d been lying, grunting as he sorted himself out...panting there on his back, a regular if pained rhythm.

And then his breath caught, and she knew he’d seen. Knew he understood. “Natalie—”

“
Please
not me!” she repeated, holding the blade out...looking at it, feeling some nameless urge...unable to understand at all.

“Compton,” Devin said gently. “It wants...
Compton.
”

To absorb him, just as Devin’s blade had absorbed every sign of the men in the parking lot.

“That’s just
sick!
” She glanced at Compton’s crumpled form, so very near, so very dead; she wanted to fling the blade away.
Don’t even touch me, blade!

She didn’t.

Instead, she sobbed—half a sob, a choked sound. “It belonged to him, and now it would
feed
on— Oh,
God.
”

“It never belonged to him,” Devin said. “Not in that way. And...” he hesitated, spoke with new assurance. “It is what it is.”

She yanked Devin’s red shirt from her waistband, pulling the soft material up until it cleared the gaping wound in her belly.

Gaping, but not bleeding.

And above it, the edge of a brand-new tattoo—more than a tattoo, really. Slightly raised whorls of a sinuous design that might have been Celtic, might have been a Middle-Eastern glyph—and wasn’t truly either.
Just like Devin’s.

She couldn’t help the noise that escaped her—panic and horror and understanding.

“Natalie.” He moved up close behind her, his arm encircling her—a comfortable enclosure, resting over one shoulder, brushing her collarbone...drawing her back to him. “This is us. We can do this.”