The Demon Beside Me (23 page)

At the Joint Security Area in Panmunjeom, the pressure built too far, too fast. Several North Koreans opened fire at the civilians trying to flee. Seeing this, the South Koreans fired upon their counterparts. A riot quickly broke out and before either side could quell it, there were thousands of refugees streaming south. Over forty thousand people crossed the border in that first day.

Days later, the refugee count was nearly three hundred thousand as the DMZ collapsed. No one paid attention to the increasingly histrionic broadcasts of the Great Leader, which abruptly ended with his unexpected death two days after the collapse of the DMZ. News organizations flooded South Korea, showing the miserable condition of the refugees. The South Korean government had been caught flatfooted. No one had expected reunification under these conditions.

Luckily, I knew who could help relieve those conditions. It hadn’t taken much convincing. I simply pointed out that the time limit the Choir had imposed was about to expire and they would seize all of our economic assets. If we spent them on aid to the Korean people, it would deny those assets to the Choir. I also suggested that we tell the Choir what we were doing, in order to shame them into matching our contributions. The High Council accepted the idea with barely a moment of deliberation. A terse message went out to the Choir. There was no response from the angels.

And so, with only days left before the putative opening of hostilities, I found myself surprised while watching television in my hotel room. The Host had put together an aid package that weighed in at several hundred million dollars. Each House had several shell corporations to deal with our worldly wealth, and they were all working together to feed that money to Korea. There was no mention of it on the news. Instead, a reporter was holding forth about some other multi-national consortium that had just announced an aid package for the Korean government that weighed in at over twenty billion dollars. I picked up my new phone and dialed Opheran. “My Prince, are you watching the news?”

“I’ve heard. It’s not the Choir.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s nothing we’ve ever heard of.” Opheran sounded exhausted. He had been running all over the world, organizing much of the House’s assets into our portion of the aid package. “As far as we can tell, this organization didn’t exist a week ago. They’re covering their tracks rapidly and the human news organizations haven’t seemed to notice yet, but we have resources they don’t.”

“Any ideas?”

“I was hoping you might.”

I frowned. “Why would I know?”

“There are signs that the organization is backed by human magic users.”

“I’ll look into it and get back to you,” I said.

“Thanks.” Opheran clicked off and I flipped through my contact list, sending text messages to both Hikari and Tink, asking if they could drop by as soon as possible. Much to my dismay, both responded immediately that they were coming to the hotel right away. I tapped my fingers on my thigh, then growled a few words in demonic.

“You called?” Kibs fluttered through the wall no more than a minute later. “Getting stir-crazy in here, Zay? Need me to find an escort for you?”

I shook my head. “No, I have Tink and Hikari on the way here.”

“Even better. Can I watch?”

“Actually, that’s exactly what I want you to do.”

The imp’s eyes grew huge. “Zay, you have just totally made my day.”

“Not exactly, Kibs. I want you to witness whatever they have to say. I need to talk to them about the mysterious organization dumping aid into Korea, and I may need some backup. You’re it.”

“Damn, you’re boring. I was hoping for some excitement.”

I laughed. “I hope this meeting is boring, to be honest. If it gets exciting, that’s probably a bad thing.”

“What do you mean? You don’t want to get both their clothes off at the same time?”

“No, Kibs. I mean, yes, maybe, but not now. Look, I’ve been helping coordinate Opheran’s work from the rear lines here for the past two weeks. I don’t have the energy. The point of getting them here is to get some questions answered. First, what do they know of this new mysterious multi-national whatever that’s backed by mages? Second, which one of them left a lingering spell on me?”

“Hikari, of course.”

“Do you know that or just suspect it?”

Kibs snorted. “Zay, you’re a dumbass of the highest level. Don’t you think we had observers watching over you while they were throwing magic at your corpse?”

“My what?”

“Shit. I need a drink.”

“Kibs, that’s not funny.”

“No, it fucking well wasn’t.” The snap to the imp’s voice made me take a step back. He flapped his wings and landed on my bed. “Look, Zay, you died, more than once. Do you really think anyone here wants to fucking talk about it?”

“No, but it would have been nice to know!”

“Why?” Kibs snapped his fingers. “Oh, so that you could feel better about what you went through? Or worse? Why the hell would it matter to you?”

“It matters, dammit!”

“Don’t you get it? You’re alive now and that’s all that-“

“Kibs! Stop it! Just tell me!”

He sighed and sprawled backwards on the bed. “I lost track of how many times your heart gave out. Each time, those two chicks brought you back. They started having to take turns doing it because they would use up so much of their own blood, they’d pass out. Sweetcheeks there, she wouldn’t let you go. She nearly killed herself a couple of times. You know what they ended up doing, Zay? They were in a hospital, right? They got blood transfusions. Every day. Every single fucking day. That’s how often you were blowing out.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. My head was spinning. I had no idea that I had come that close. No one had told me. “I owe them my life.”

“Forget that shit, Zay. You already saved both of their lives time and time again, especially Sweetcheeks. They owed it to you. Besides, you dumbass, they actually like you. Humans will go to all ends to save the lives of people they like.”

I shook my head. There were some things I just didn’t understand. Being a halfblood didn’t mean I was wired like a human, or like a demon. I fully intellectually understood the concept Kibs was talking about. I just didn’t understand how it applied to me. I understood why Hikari and Tink felt they might need to go to such lengths. It all made sense on some level.

“Hell to Zay, come in Zay.”

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Yeah, I figured. I saw the smoke.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“Don’t thank me. I still don’t think you need to know, but too fucking late now.” He sighed and sat up. “Just don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“I’ll try not to. Back to the original subject. Do you have any proof that it was Hikari? I didn’t know that you could recognize specific spells.”

Kibs slapped his forehead. “You are such a dumbass, Zay. We were watching over you, dipshit. We saw the healing spells they cast on you. One night, after Sweetcheeks passed out, Hikari cast a different type of spell. She didn’t say anything about it. We thought about telling Opheran about it, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with you. In fact, that was right around the turning point.”

“So you thought she did it to help me?”

“Maybe, but if it’s still lingering after all these weeks, I’m suspicious.”

“Maybe she just forgot to lift it? Or hasn’t had a chance to lift it?”

“Bullshit, Zay. She’s been avoiding you.”

“She has?”

Kibs slapped his forehead again. “How many times has she come to see you in the past month since you woke up? Five? Six? Some girlfriend. She’s not even living with you here. Where do you think she’s been?”

I turned my head to look at him. “You tell me.”

“She’s been at a different hotel, back near your old place. I think she’s been taking all sorts of extra hours at work. Almost lost her job while you were out, but I think she used some magic to convince them to let her stay on.”

“Seems risky to be so far away from the House protection here,” I said.

“Opheran thought the same thing. He offered to get her work here. She turned him down, even though it’d pay better than what she’s doing now.”

I tapped my fingers on my thigh. “I’d think that she’d be looking for money in order to get a new apartment.”

“Something’s weird about that girl, Zay.” Kibs got to his feet and launched off the bed. “Speaking of which, she’s on the way up now. Sweetcheeks is with her. They were both smiling when they got here, and then they caught sight of each other, and the smiles vanished. Neither one has said a word to the other. Oh, that elevator must be very uncomfortable.”

I sighed. “This is going to be an unpleasant little meeting, isn’t it?”

“You called it. Good luck.” Kibs faded into transparency and vanished.

I stood up and walked toward the living room. The House had put me up in a corporate suite, which was very nearly as large as the apartment that Hikari and I had been renting. The furnishings, at least, were far nicer. I almost didn’t want to sit down on the couch for fear of getting it dirty.

A knock on the door told me that the time had come. Tink and Hikari were standing side by side in the hallway, neither one smiling, both glaring at me as if I had done something very, very wrong. Maybe I had. I stood back to allow them in. Somehow, they both managed to walk through the doorway at the same time without coming in contact with each other. Neither one of them said a word as they selected seats opposite one another.

I closed the door and cleared my throat. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you both here today.” Neither of them said a word in response, simply stared at me. “Actually, I have a couple of things to ask you about. More than a couple. I don’t even know where to start.”

I might have been talking to a wall for all the reaction I got. I pointed at the television sitting dark in a corner. “Have either of you seen the news about some multi-national consortium putting together a twenty billion dollar aid package for Korea? That’s a twenty with nine zeroes after it. We’re talking real money here, ladies.”

This time, Hikari blinked. There was no reaction from Tink. I continued. “From what I’ve heard, that corporation is brand new. They’ve built a history for themselves out of thin air. It’s not backed by the Host. It’s not backed by the Choir. Who’s behind it?”

“Why are you asking us?” Hikari asked.

“Because it’s backed by mages,” I said.

“How do you know that?” Tink asked.

“Come on, Anna, you know they have intelligence services,” Hikari snapped.

“I’m not asking how the House knows, I’m asking how he knows,” Tink snapped back.

“Obviously through his contacts in the House.”

“How I know isn’t the issue here,” I said. While part of me was glad they were speaking to each other, most of me was screaming various warnings and imperatives to jump out the window right now. “I’m asking if you know anything about it.”

“I don’t, but I’m not connected like she is,” Tink said. “Why don’t you let us know, Hikari-chan? I’m sure there’s so much you haven’t told us.”

“I’m sorry? What exactly are you trying to insinuate here?”

“Do you know anything about them?” I asked, cutting Tink off before she could say anything else.

Hikari frowned. “I don’t know that I can tell you. Either of you.”

“Why not?”

“There are things you can’t tell me, right?” she asked. I nodded. “Well, there are things I can’t tell you either. Unless...does the name Nathan Kane mean anything to you?”

I searched my memory. “Doesn’t ring any bells,” I said. Kibs would look into that.

Tink’s face was scrunched up in thought. “That name sounds vaguely familiar. I know I’ve heard it before. Maybe Rashid mentioned it in passing.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you had eavesdropped on a conversation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means-“

I stood up. “The second thing I wanted to ask about was the spell that’s still lingering on me.”

Hikari’s mouth snapped shut. Tink leaned forward. “I’ve been wondering about that too, ever since Famine mentioned it. I know we cast that spell to keep him from producing ichor, but then we lifted it. At least, I lifted my part of it. Did you forget something, Hikari-chan?”

“Stop calling me that, Tinkerbell.”

Tink sat back with a satisfied smile. I was impressed. It took serious effort to get that sort of rise out of Hikari, unless you were me, in which case you could do it with no effort at all. “It’s still affecting me, you know,” I said. “It’s not keeping me from naturally producing ichor, but it is keeping me from converting blood to ichor. I haven’t needed to do so ever since I woke up, but you know, I could really use that ability back. I can’t sustain use of my powers without that.”

“That wasn’t what we agreed on,” Tink said, her tone low, almost a growl.

“I don’t recall agreeing on anything.”

“It was a temporary measure, to keep him from-“

“I know what it was for,” Hikari snapped.

“So do I,” I said. Both of them looked up at me. “You did what you needed to do to keep me alive. You both did more than you ever had to do. What I’m curious about is that this lingering spell isn’t something that’s needed anymore. So why isn’t it gone?”

The mages exchanged looks again. “I wish I knew,” Tink growled.

“It’s nothing you need to know or worry about,” Hikari said.

“Are you serious? Of course I need to worry about it,” I said. “Hikari, why’d you leave something like that in place?”

“For your own good.”

“Yeah, right,” Tink snorted.

“For my own good? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We couldn’t risk you straining your system by producing too much ichor,” Hikari continued. “I felt that it’d be best to restrain your powers until we were sure you wouldn’t pop a hidden pocket of purity somewhere.”

“You felt?” Tink pounced before I could say anything. “You felt we should wait? Funny, I don’t remember you consulting me about this. I bet you didn’t talk with Opheran about it either.”

“We had already agreed to stop the ichor production! This was just another precaution along those same lines.”