Wicked Whispers (7 page)

Surprise widened Asima’s eyes.
“Can you text it?”

Ivy pulled out her phone and tried. Damn, she couldn’t even write the word. “Nope.”

Asima’s expression turned calculating.
“You can’t say or write the word ‘ogre.’ How interesting. I’ll need time to consider your request.”

“But—”

“I’m afraid I have to go now.”
Asima paused before leaving.
“By the way, you might want to ask yourself how you were able to see the ogre’s true form. A normal human would have seen an old man. We’ll explore the intriguing possibilities at another time.”
She left the room, her waving tail an arrogant question mark over her back. Fitting. The door clicked shut behind her.

A normal human? Ivy knew soul-deep that she’d never be normal again. Once seen, an ogre couldn’t be unseen. She stared at the indentation in her comforter where Asima had lain. Real; it was
all
real. And she didn’t have a clue how she’d been able to see the ogre as he really was. Murmur and Asima had to be mistaken. There was nothing special about her. The ogre must’ve been so wrapped up in his dancing that he’d forgotten about his glamour.

Her heart was racing.
Calm. Stay calm
. She needed something to take her mind off Murmur, Asima, and random… whatevers dancing throught the castle’s hallways. It was time for her to start doing her job. Ivy dragged the bag of complaints from her closet and dumped what must be thousands of folded papers onto her coffee table. Then she began to read them.

“Holgarth told me I had the acting ability of a cactus.” Ivy set the paper on a designated spot on the table for all wizard complaints. She picked up the next paper. “Your chef sucks. Tell him I’ve eaten tastier shoe leather than that steak from last night.” Restaurant pile. “Holgarth refused to make me the handsome prince. He said I’d have to lose a hundred pounds and get a new face to qualify.” Wizard pile. “I found dust above the door to my room.” Who the heck checked for dust above the door? Guest room pile. “Holgarth wouldn’t let me be in the fantasies. He said he’d call me when they began doing nightmares.” Wizard pile.

Ivy frowned. She was beginning to see a pattern. Her cell phone shattered Ivy’s silent contemplation of the pile of complaints still to be read. She almost ignored the call. Then she sighed. Life had to go on. She pulled the phone from her pocket and put on her fake perky voice. “Hello?”

A few minutes later, she shoved the phone back into her pocket. Part of the giant boulder resting on her chest lifted. One of the other job applications she’d put in had come through. Sort of. She wouldn’t start work for three weeks, and she’d have to move to Denver. The money wasn’t as good as here, but if the workplace was demon-free, hey, she’d make do with less. She could work here for two more weeks and then tell Sparkle she was quitting. After all, Sparkle had misrepresented the job description. Nowhere had it mentioned dancing with demons and facing down ogres. Definitely a deal breaker.

But as she sat trying to work up the energy to read more complaints, the boulder settled back onto her chest.

She was a coward. Sure, no one else would call her that. No one would blame her for walking away from this nightmare. But Ivy would know. She would be quitting after just a few weeks.
Just like Dad.
If she called home and told Mom she was quitting because the castle had a sexy demon along with assorted other nonhuman entities, Ivy knew what her mother would say.

First, Mom would sigh wearily. Then she’d say she understood. Mom always said that to Dad when he quit a job. Each time he used the same excuse. He couldn’t concentrate on his work because he could hear voices when no one was there. He claimed the voices followed him wherever he went.

Ivy had wanted Mom to lose her temper just once, to scream at Dad that she was tired of supporting the family, tired of his weak-ass excuses. But Mom never yelled, never threatened to leave him, just looked sad.

Ivy loved her father, but she’d never for a minute believed his story. Mom should’ve gotten help for him years ago. Ivy had even believed he was faking the voices so he wouldn’t have to work.

But now? Ivy knew her smile was bitter.
What goes around comes around.

She stood and headed for the door. If she had to work two weeks here, she’d give Sparkle her money’s worth. Her boss would probably be at Sweet Indulgence now. There was something weird about Sparkle owning a candy store. Images of Hansel and Gretel came to mind.

And if she thought just a little about never seeing Murmur again after she left the castle, she would concentrate on his mind manipulation and allow her anger to smother any regrets.

4

Earbuds in, Murmur lay on his bed listening to the latest pop pap. It helped to neutralize the music in his head so that he could think. Guilt? He almost didn’t recognize the feeling. Demons didn’t do guilt. But there it was, buzzing around his head like a demented fly. And all because of the accusation in Ivy’s eyes—betrayal. A scary revelation, because he’d betrayed and been betrayed so many times over the centuries that there should be no emotion connected to it. Why now? Why her?

He folded his hands behind his head and contemplated the ceiling. She wouldn’t sympathize with his reason for sealing her lips. The longer they could keep Ganymede and Sparkle in the dark about the fae visits, the better chance they had of being here when the faery host arrived. Sure, they could probably move their operation to another place, but no other hotel would offer a built-in army. No matter how ticked Ganymede would be at them, when the time came he’d defend his home against the Sluagh Sidhe.

At some point, Murmur realized he was dozing off. Unusual for him to feel sleepy. Demons didn’t need much down time. His last waking thought was that he’d have to face Ivy with the implication of her ability to see through glamours.

When he opened his eyes he was somewhere else.
What the… ?
He was lying in the grass on a hill overlooking a village. Murmur glanced around. Centuries old from the looks of the buildings and the people’s clothing. He watched as they scurried about doing the useless things humans did. A dream?

“Today is a good day for them to die.”

Murmur turned his head. He recognized Klepoth’s voice before he saw him sitting on a nearby tree stump. Today Klepoth looked about sixteen with spiked blue hair and bright red eyes. His appearance changed with his mood. It had been a long time, but Murmur still remembered that a visit from the demon who dealt in illusions was never a happy event.

“What do you want?” Murmur didn’t feel like pretending he was glad to see Klepoth.

The other demon tried to look wounded by Murmur’s tone, but his sly anticipation leaked through. “I thought we might experience one of your happier memories today. From what I’ve seen, you’ve forgotten how to have real fun.”

Murmur glanced back at the village. Did he remember this? There’d been so many villages, so many slaughters. He looked away. “Do I have a choice?”

“Not really.” Klepoth grinned. “The Master just wanted to remind you what a good time felt like.”

“Is that all?”

Klepoth shrugged, but his red eyes were slits of malevolent pleasure. “For now.”

Murmur stood. The need to destroy seeped through him—familiar, comfortable. That’s how he’d felt back then, and it seemed as though Klepoth meant for him to experience the same emotions with the same results now. He should relax into it, enjoy the moment. This was just a realistic simulation. Klepoth was good at what he did.

Then why did he feel reluctant about the coming slaughter?
You’re becoming like them, the humans down there—too fragile, too soft
. The very idea outraged him. He was what he’d always been, and “soft” was never a word that anyone would say to his face and survive the saying. “Let’s go and end some lives.”

Klepoth whooped his agreement. “Now you’re talking.”

Together they swooped down on the village. Klepoth patrolled the perimeter, herding anyone trying to escape back toward the town center. The Master must have ordered Klepoth to let Murmur do the killing, because he watched Murmur from hungry eyes filled with barely controlled bloodlust. The other demon might specialize in illusions, but he liked to bloody his hands as much as any of them.

Murmur stood surrounded by terrified villagers, who trampled each other in their panicked need to get away from him.
Too late. Much too late.
He grinned.

Then he composed a special melody just for them. It was filled with jagged edges and deadly needles of sound. He drew the notes from the power curled in layers deep within him and then gave it form. The music spiraled out from him—seeking, destroying.

A razor-sharp chorus stabbed a fleeing man over and over until he lay dead in a growing pool of blood. Murmur hummed the harmony as he killed.

The melody line wrapped around the wrinkled throat of an old woman and tightened.

He didn’t wait to see her face darken before he targeted a huge man trying to hide behind one of the hovels. Murmur trapped the man between the notes of his crescendo, slamming them against his body, battering him with the swelling climax to his musical masterpiece. The man’s agonized screams made Murmur wince. The guy’s shrieks were so off-key that they hurt. When the music ended, the man lay dead.

Murmur spun in a slow circle. They all were dead. Wait for it, wait for it…
It came.
The unbelievable euphoria that mindless killing had always brought him. It was a power surge he never grew tired of. Why had he ever stopped? This was what he’d been created for.

“Remember that, Murmur.” Klepoth’s whisper came from right behind him.

Murmur turned, his mind still soaring on his killing high. “What does the Master want?”

Klepoth smiled. “He wants you to remember. To reclaim the savagery and cruelty you once had.” Then he was gone. The village with its dead went with him.

Murmur opened his eyes. His euphoria had disappeared, and he was soaked with sweat. The feeling churning in his stomach was so unexpected that he almost didn’t make it to the bathroom. He emptied his stomach and then dry heaved until his abs ached. When he finally struggled to his feet, he felt almost weak. He stumbled into the shower and scrubbed the memory of the dream—the torn flesh, the blood, the shrieks, the ease with which humans died—from his body.

Once out of the bathroom, he dressed again and headed for the door. He needed out of here. The reaction to his dream had struck a chord of fear he couldn’t face right now. The demon he’d once been and still should be would
never
puke his brains out over a few human deaths.

And in a place he kept hidden even from himself, he suspected his nausea had nothing to do with the blood and gore, the human deaths. He was… Murmur closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, his white screen was once again in place and all temptation to take a peek into his psyche was tucked neatly behind it.

Rather than sit staring at the screen, he decided to search out someone who’d irritate him so much that he’d forget about the dream.

Ivy stared at the stone steps as she walked down to the great hall. No way would she take the chance of trapping herself in an elevator where scary nonhumans could join her at any moment. The winding stairway might be narrow, but at least she had somewhere to run if she needed to escape. And as long as she watched where she put her feet, she wouldn’t slip and take a header.

She heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs at the same moment he spoke.

“You must be Ivy.” His voice was smooth and cool.

Startled, she glanced up. He was tall enough that even though he was standing a step below her, they were still at eye level.

“Yes. And you are?” She knew her words sounded a little breathless, but who could blame her?

“Tirron. I’m staying here for a few weeks.”

In some ways, he looked like Murmur. Both were tall with long hair—his almost silver instead of blond—and beautiful faces, but their similarity had nothing to do with the physical stuff. His power pushed at her. She could
feel
it. It felt like Murmur’s power and yet different—harder with no flexibility to it, brittle.
When did you begin to feel power?

He had cold eyes. Murmur’s eyes could grow just as cold, but he had a sense of humor that softened them a little. Caustic, mocking, but still humorous. Ivy sensed no humor in this man.

“Wait? How do you know me?” She would have remembered meeting him.

He smiled, but it never reached his icy blue eyes. “I’m a friend of Murmur’s. He described you.”

He leaned closer and, no matter how gorgeous he was, she had the urge to move back. “Why would he describe me?” Something about this man’s interest made her want to turn and run back up the steps.

He raised one brow. “You’re a very attractive woman. Why wouldn’t he notice and comment on it to a friend?”

She controlled the urge to squirm, to look away from his stare. And yet… There was something about his beauty that drew her. How could she feel attracted and repelled at the same time?

“You’re perfect, just perfect.”

“Yes, well…” Perfect for what? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Because something more than sexual interest lived in his eyes for a moment and then was gone.

“Perhaps we’ll hunt the night skies together.” His comment was almost a whisper.

She smiled, because he was kidding, right? Ivy took a deep breath. If she were a braver person, she would have asked if he was a demon too. Time to get out of here. He was making her way too nervous. “I guess I’d better stop blocking the steps. Nice meeting you.” She flattened herself against the wall so that he could pass.

After one more long, searching look, he eased past her and was gone. She exhaled the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

For the rest of the walk to Sparkle’s shop, she pushed the thought that Murmur had spoken to Tirron about her around in her head. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.