The Demon Beside Me (33 page)

“Probably,” Tink said. “Someone will run out of blood by then. Probably me. She’ll have preparations in place. We’ll have to put her down quickly.”

“Don’t assume we’re going to end up fighting her,” I said. “Hopefully we can just do what she wants, get the data deleted, and then leave.”

“Pussy. You just don’t want to hit her.”

“I will admit a certain reluctance to do that.”

“Personally, I can’t wait for the chance.”

“You’re a bloodthirsty little fairy, you know that?”

She glanced over at me. “Demon, we’ve had a habit of showing mercy and compassion over the past few years. Every time we’ve done that, it’s been thrown back in our face. Back then, it was Azzy killing Julian and possessing Chrissy. Now it’s Victor killing Jase and starting a war.”

“So now you want to kill her?”

“If it comes down to that.”

That was something I didn’t want to think about, but her reasoning was sound enough. We had never benefitted from leaving an enemy alive. There was no telling if Hikari was actually an enemy, or if she was simply seeking revenge. “Even if we did kill her, she could easily have something set up to provide her data to the Choir automatically,” I said. “Last resort, Tink.”

“That’s not a problem,” she said. “Weaken her enough and I’ll pull those memories from her head first. If she’s lucky the shock will kill her.”

I shook my head, but didn’t say anything. Tink was seriously contemplating killing, and I knew I couldn’t talk her out of it. If it came down to it, I might need to stand between the two of them again, or I might need to stand aside. The fact that I even considered allowing Tink to kill Hikari in cold blood bothered me.

“Are you listening to me?”

“No,” I said.

“Don’t get all cowardly with me now, demon. If she turns out to be fully against us, you can’t hold back. If you do, it might kill both of us. She’s a master mage, she’s on track to become a grandmaster, and she has connections. If we commit, we commit all the way. Got it?”

“Got it,” I said.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I, but don’t expect me to get serious until I have to.”

She took her hand off the steering wheel to smack my shoulder. “That’s more like the demon I know.”

I rubbed my shoulder and declined to respond. The more I thought about it, the less I liked it. Even if she was officially now my ex-girlfriend, I still cared about her in some ways. Privately, I resolved that unless the situation absolutely called for it, I wouldn’t let Tink go wild. My goal now was to keep things from escalating to that point.

I held that thought in my head for the rest of the trip, and all the way through the park to our eventual meeting place. I held onto it as we confronted Hikari, the two of us standing side by side at one end of an abandoned playground, facing off with her. No words were spoken, but I felt Tink’s magical powers surge.

“Planning on attacking me, Anna?” Hikari smiled, clasping her hands behind her back. “Go on. Attack one of your superiors.”

“Give me a reason,” Tink breathed.

“I didn’t think you’d need one. But, if you insist.” Hikari turned sideways and gestured, extending her hand. A figure stepped into sight from invisibility, the magical shroud falling away as he took that first step. He took Hikari’s hand, lifted it to his lips, and turned to face us.

My guts turned to water. Tink froze in place. “What the fuck have you done?” was the only thing I could think to say.

“I considered my ‘petty’ vengeance carefully,” Hikari said as she produced a knife from a hidden sheath. “Forcing you two apart would be satisfying, yes, but not as satisfying as this. Not nearly as satisfying.”

Victor produced one of his scimitars and they both sliced their palms open, then pressed their bloody hands together. “By my blood, I invoke this contract,” Hikari said, her voice sing-song and lilting across the air to us. “By my blood, I invoke our vengeance.”

“By my blood, I invoke this contract,” Victor intoned. “By my blood, I invoke our retribution.”

“No!” Tink flung her arm out, spraying blood toward them, each drop shining with magical force. Each drop struck an invisible barrier, splattering the air between them and us. Her knife followed, bouncing off that same barrier.

“By my blood, I invoke this contract,” Hikari said. Her gaze turned to me. “By my blood, I invoke our castigation, our redress for wrongs done unto us, as God is our witness.”

“So let it be witnessed,” Victor said. His gaze turned across the playground to us as well and I felt a surge of power that nearly sent me to my knees. “So let it be done.”

If I could have moved, I would have moved. The shock and betrayal I felt had pinned me in place more easily than any magic ever could. It fell to Tink to save me, which of course, she did. The amplified torrent of magic burned through the place where I had just been standing, just before Tink threw me aside with her own force magic. I bounced, came up to one knee, and threw myself sideways again as another blue-white blaze of raw magic energy seared through the air.

“Get up!” Tink screamed. “Get up, demon, get up!”

Hikari and Victor were laughing, laughing as their combined magic flashed toward me, forcing me to scramble to stay one step ahead of them. It took around a half dozen blasts before my shock faded into rage, and from rage into pumping ichor, and from pumping ichor into my full demonic form before the seventh blast of magic came anywhere near me. When my ichor-fueled power saw it coming, I realized that it was all light and fury, without even the strength needed to pierce my skin. I caught it in one hand, tossing the blast back behind me without even wincing. “I realize that I’m a halfbreed,” I said, “but you should know better than to underestimate me.”

Tink strode to my side, her hands running scarlet. “There’s also a question of experience with amplified magic,” she said. “We’ve got it. You don’t.”

“Then take your best shot,” Hikari said, stepping away from Victor and spreading her arms wide. “Go on, dear sweet Tinkerbell. I’ll give you one freebie.”

Tink was already inscribing runes in the air with one hand with her right hand, but I noticed her left hand inscribing something as well, something that lay edge-on to Hikari, making it nearly impossible for her to read. I couldn’t read it either, but I trusted that some sort of unpleasant surprise was in store. I held my hand out, my claws already having gouged my palm to offer my ichor to her. She dipped her fingertips in the green pool to finish the right-hand rune, lifting her left hand to complete the casting. “Are you sure, Hikari-chan?” she asked sweetly, before punching both runes together and sending a familiar swirl of power spiraling in toward Hikari.

Naturally, Hikari had read Tink’s rune and the spell deflected up into the sky, fading away almost instantly. I watched it go and smiled. That wasn’t where the amplification had gone.

The true portion of the spell, the left-hand scrawl, punched through Hikari’s defenses and blew her clothes off in their entirety.

Hikari looked down at herself, then up at us, then over at Victor. To her credit, she barely even blushed. “What did you expect to accomplish with that?”

“I thought that as long as you were attempting to make a fool out of the demon here, I’d return the favor. It’s not like you have anything to be proud of, hanging out like that.”

With consummate grace, Victor shrugged out of his uniform jacket and offered it to Hikari, who wrapped it around herself and buttoned it closed. “Such behavior,” he murmured, just loud enough for us to hear. “Demonic influence, without a doubt.”

“I’m pretty sure she came up with that on her own,” I said. “Never even crossed my mind, honestly. It’s not like I haven’t seen Hikari naked before.”

“It’s a question of disrespect,” Victor said, drawing his other scimitar out of the air and lifting them both to a guard position. “The disrespect you’ve offered your lover, over and over again, tore her away from you, and pushed her to me. Perhaps I do have something to thank you for, demon.”

“See, there is hope for peace in our time,” I drawled, even as I ignited hellfire in each palm. “As for Hikari, you’re more than welcome to her affections, but don’t come crying to me once the break-in period is over. I don’t offer a warranty. No refunds, no trade-ins, all transactions are final.”

“Can’t you show a little respect for what we had?” She was trembling, visibly shaking even from where I stood. Her fair skin seemed translucent under the noon sun. Long black hair picked up and blew across her face, even though there was no wind to be felt. “Is that too much to ask?”

I looked directly into her dark eyes, across that distance that I could never cross again. “Hikari, I can’t believe you have the gall to ask me that, considering where you’re standing right now. I didn't bring us to this point. It was you.”

The surge of magical energy was the only warning I had, and it wasn’t enough. The impact sent me flying. If I hadn’t been in my demonic form, it would have torn me in half. As it was, my shirt shredded and my chest wept blood and ichor from where the skin had peeled back. I rolled and jumped to my feet, just in time for her to hit me again. This time, it hit me in the right shoulder and I felt the impact wrench my shoulder out of its socket.

Tink was working up wards, but Victor was already diving at her. She was no match for an archangel, but Hikari should have been no match for me. I dove sideways as another spell arced toward me, landing on my right shoulder and slamming the joint back into place. Pain leapt through that entire side of my body. I burned ichor, shunting it away and healing the trauma before anything else could go wrong.

“Demon! Help!” Tink had managed a magic circle to keep Victor out, but he was already close to penetrating the defensive field. I manifested hellfire in each hand and flung the burning sparks, one toward Hikari, one toward Victor. Both swatted the sparks away, but that was just to keep them busy while I charged and tackled the angel, coming in low, under his swords. He went sprawling and I sunk my clawed fingertips into his right arm, hard enough to pierce his skin and draw purity out.

A flash of heat from behind me told me that Hikari had just tried something and that Tink had blocked it. Victor kicked away from me, his wings thrusting out from his shoulders as he got to his feet. He touched the wounds and grinned, raising one of his blades in mocking salute. “First blood to the demon.”

I didn’t even bother to respond, simply dropped to one knee and traced a circle around myself, adding both my blood and ichor to empower the magic. Another spell from Hikari crackled out, but the circle absorbed her human magic and grounded it with an impressive crackle. Victor charged, but Tink interposed herself between us and flicked him into the air with a quick spell, then reversed it as his wings stretched out. He crashed to the ground and I heard a crack as his left wing folded.

“Hold him,” I snarled, forcing more blood and ichor out. The runes I drew inside the rim of the circle were simple, designed to contain rather than protect. I had to finish rapidly. The magic wouldn’t let anything in, including air, once the runes were complete. Tink slammed her own spells into Victor as he sprawled on the ground, trying to prevent him from standing up again.

More magic flashed out from Hikari’s fingertips, this time, aiming for Tink. Tink drifted back a step or two, putting my circle between her and Hikari, blocking direct spells. Hikari mirrored her movement, but those few moments let me finish my work. I scrawled a force rune and brought it into line with the rising Victor, then sparked hellfire with my other hand.

My other hand, which still had Victor’s purity dripping from my claws.

The volatile reaction between my burning ichor and his purity ignited, the hellfire shifting rapidly from sickly yellow-green to a searing white. Before it could explode, I threw the force spell against the spark. The energy flashed out, passing through the circle I had drawn, the force spell taking on an aspect of that circle. A volatile reaction trapped within an accelerated and protected bolt of force.

Victor brought one of his swords up to deflect the bolt, obviously expecting his angelic blade would easily deflect the human magic. It did. The resultant chain reaction as the tiny spark blossomed from its restraints wasn’t deflected at all. His sword shattered and the blinding white explosion flung him as if he was a toy.

Unfortunately, my circle wasn’t quite able to absorb the energy. The first indication I had of that was when my back struck the playground’s jungle gym. Something snapped, probably the metal bars, possibly my backbone. I couldn’t tell. My first priority was to recover my eyesight. Flushing ichor from my ravaged tear ducts was not fun, but it did the trick. My vision returned in a blur, just in time to see something flying at me. I tried to dodge, but my body just sort of lurched, and a metal shaft slammed into me. The impact was stunning, on top of all the other damage I had just received.

“Demon,” hissed a very angry angelic voice, and I felt fingers close around my throat. “You are fortunate that my orders are to bring you in alive.”

“I don’t feel very fortunate at the moment,” I rasped.

The fingers tightened, then suddenly let go. “Neither do I,” Tink snapped. I felt her small hands close on my wrists and pull me free. I stood on unsteady legs and surveyed the damage I had wrought. At our feet, Victor sprawled out, trying to get to his hands and knees. More accurately, hand and knees. His left arm was somewhat missing below the elbow. The playground resembled a desert now, with several trees having crashed to the ground in the distance, all of the equipment having collapsed in pieces of scorched plastic and strained metal. Tink had used a stray piece of metal to simply club the angel to the ground.

I turned to regard her and winced. Her face was a bloody mask and she was holding her left arm tightly to her side. “Wasn’t my best idea, was it?”

“I’m just glad that circle of yours deflected the worst of it.” She winced and shook the wounded arm out. “So, let’s finish him and be done with this.”

“What about Hikari?” I asked.