“Come again?” I sputtered a chuckle and shook my head. “I don’t think I heard you right.”
“You were born into this world fifteen years ago,” he said slowly. “Your body is fifteen in human years.”
I let that settle. Okay, I tried letting it settle. Who was I fooling? “You are pure T-certified crazy. People don’t just pop into existence.” Though Sherry, who was probably firing her birth cannon as we spoke, might disagree. “Not at that age and not at that size.”
“You’re not human,” he enunciated clearly. “You don’t follow their rules. None of us do.”
“How?” I pounded my fist on the table, and dull pain rocketed up my arm. “Where did I come from if not here?”
“A world so distant from this one you would die of old age if you tried reaching it as you are now.”
More than a hundred years from here, now.
A dull thump announced Portia’s arrival. She had leapt through her window and strolled toward us with an onion in her hand. “Humans dig visual aids,” she informed Cole. “Here, sweetie,” she said to me. “Let me show you how it works. “This onion represents all the layers in all the worlds.” She took a knife from her pocket and sliced it in half. “See all those rings? Each one is its own civilization. We call them terrenes. The kernel in the center is Earth.” She took one half and chucked it into the water, then she halved the remaining piece again. “Okay, so. For today’s lesson, we’re only going to focus on your origin as it pertains to your current location.” She tapped the knife’s blade at the kernel. “This model shows your world as the top, the cream of the crop, and that’s somewhat true.” She indicated each of the lower layers until she got to the bottommost one. “This is what humans would consider Hell.” She smiled up at me. “That’s where you came from, princess.”
“I was born in Hell?” I lifted the other discarded quarter of the onion and picked at the outer layer with my thumbnail. “I’m that kind of demon?”
“Yes. And, well, no.” She pursed her lips. “Hell is a concept spawned by a religion that doesn’t exist outside this terrene. It’s not even called Hell, technically. It’s Otilla. It is the lowest ‘hell’, the highest court in the land, and the origin of our species.”
“Okay.” I kept picking apart the crisp, white layers, the pungent smell an anchor to prove this was real. Our conversation was happening. “The princess jab, that part wasn’t real.”
Santiago had called me princess too. I hoped for my sake it was a term of endearment.
“Otilla’s ruling family is related to yours, Czar Astrakhan is your cousin once removed, but no. You’re not royalty in that sense.” She laughed like I had been silly to imagine I might find out in one day that I was both a demon and a princess. I bet Disney would have loved optioning the rights to that story. “You’re something much worse.” She leaned her hip against the table. “You’re one of Otilla’s elite, a member of the Czar’s cadre. This world’s lore paints them as the four horsemen, which is totally sexist I might add. Most cadre are women. Few males make the cut. Female Otillians are the most vicious gender, you see.”
“Four horsemen?” The onion made a hard thump when it rolled from my hand and thudded onto the planks. “As in of the apocalypse?”
“Yep. The very same. Minus the men. And the horses. For one thing, they don’t exist in Otilla. For another, if they did, they would be eaten. Not ridden.” She patted my cheek. “How does it feel learning you’re a horror so feared that word of you has spread throughout all the known terrenes?” She sighed. “Great, right? It must feel amazing. Barely anyone in my terrene knew my name. Mostly they got me confused with my sisters. We were all spawned from the same clutch, and—” She frowned at me. “Why are you so pale? You’re not going to vomit again, are you?”
Metal scraped, and then Cole was there, his strong arms sliding around me, his deep voice resonating within me. My whole world narrowed to his face, his lips, but if he was still talking, I was past listening.
Soft sheets, plush mattress, a warm male body stretched beside mine. My senses fed me that information before I opened my eyes. The dark behind my lashes was comfortable, safe. I decided I liked it there. “I’m not opening my eyes until you tell me what just happened was a dream.”
“The fainting part or the history lesson?” Portia chirped.
“Portia,” Cole growled, “find Luce something to eat.”
Her bare feet slapped on the polished wood floor, and a door slammed behind her.
“Are we in your bedroom?” I patted the material beneath me, certain I was back where I had started my day. “We must be. Otherwise the headboard I feel behind me would be smacking the wall every time you moved.”
“Do you mind?” came the dangerous question.
My eyes opened slowly, and sure enough. Cole’s room. Cole’s bed. Cole’s face inches from mine. His nearness gave me the strength to ask, “Am I really some kind of demonic boogeyman?”
“Yes.” His gaze never wavered. “Humans named you Pestilence, Breaker of the First Seal. But I have always known you as Conquest, the fierce warrior who crushed terrenes beneath her heel.”
“You don’t sound as thrilled about the world crushing as Portia,” I noted.
“I called you Conquest, and I was your first.”
A knot of dread tightened my middle. “What do you mean?”
“Each of us comes from a terrene you and your sisters claimed for the glory of Otilla.” Bitterness seeped into his tone. “We are your trophies, your spoils of war, your pets. You indoctrinated us into your coterie by force, and we have crossed worlds to fight at your side.”
“My coterie?” I pushed up onto my elbows. “I thought these were your people.”
“Only Otillians are strong enough to bind so many against their will.” Fury hissed and crackled in his tone. “I’ve cared for them in your absence. That’s all.”
Bind so many against their will. Miller had sounded grateful but . . . no wonder Santiago hated me. No wonder Cole . . . the backs of my eyes stung, and I wished I could blame the onions. “That’s why you don’t want . . . ” Me. “You bailed on our date because of what I am. That’s why you said we couldn’t happen. Are we not . . . ? Compatible?”
Cole searched my face, as he so often did, and exhaled softly. “I want you,” he bit out at a clipped pace as though he might somehow outrun his admission. “The fiction of you. So much I slip up sometimes and forget this person, Luce Boudreau, doesn’t exist.” He traced the curve of my jaw. “She’s a shell, a skin Conquest wears and will one day outgrow.”
“Don’t say that.” I shoved him away and rolled to my feet. “I’m me. I’m not Conquest. I’m Luce.”
The predator in the bed across from me sat up and stared. “You came back wrong.”
“Wow. Thanks.” A single laugh burst out of me. “Always with the compliments.”
“All terrenes are created with inborn defenses meant to insulate them against threats from above and below them. No demon, not even one as powerful as you, can rip a hole between planes and step through. They must be born into a world so that they belong to it. The act requires immense power. Few are capable of breaching a new world, but once that seal is broken, others can follow. The more seals that are broken, the more demons can enter a given world.” His gaze swept the room as though he saw beyond the walls. “Earth is the core. It’s the highest any demon has ever dared climb. This world, so full of soft creatures, has defenses the likes of which we have never encountered.”
Until my shoulders brushed the wall, I hadn’t been aware I was backing away from him. “Breaching a new terrene?” Grateful for the support, I leaned against the sturdy paneling. “You’re saying Earth gave birth to me? And she—what? Dropped me on my head after delivery?”
“It took days for us to transition after you opened the way and days more for us to locate you.” He picked at his watchband. “You had been taken in by the humans at that point. We thought that because your skin must be so fragile you meant to live among them and learn from them for a time. You had done the same before, so we created a base in the swamp and waited for your return.” He dragged his focus back to me. “Except you never came back for us.”
“Not on purpose.” I threw up my hands. “I had no idea you existed. I thought I was a freak. I thought I was alone. Do you think I wouldn’t have come running had I know there were others like me living so close?”
“I know that now.” He studied me, his favorite pastime. “In other terrenes, in other lives, you came back the same. An adult. You belonged to the native culture, but the bands marked you as Otilla’s own. You spent months submersing yourself in the local cultures, absorbing information so that when you struck, it was fast and hard and there were no survivors.”
Acid burned my throat, and I shook my head until my brain rattled.
“This time you came back as a child. An innocent. You bore the markings of Otilla, but that was all.” His lips turned down at the edges. “I thought at first it must be a trap of some kind, a new means of toying with your prey. Years passed before I began to believe the act might be real, to suspect this terrene might have finally bested you by warping your mind and flesh to assimilate you, to create its own champion from the essence of its enemy.
“Part of me still expects betrayal, welcomes it, because that I understand. I dream of you here, in this room with me as you are now, with that soft look in your eyes.” He swallowed hard. “I imagine you clawing away the delicate flesh from your bones to expose the demon at your core. I picture you laughing in my face at my horror, kicking the pile of flesh I knew as Luce aside, and mocking me for my weakness.” His voice deepened as he stood. “Conquest might have broken me, but I have survived her.” He walked past and yanked open the door. “You, Luce . . . you wield the power to shatter me until I am dust, and even that is blown to the four corners of this earth and forgotten.”
Cole walked out onto the deck and transformed in the blink of an eye. Massive head bowed, his antlers brushing the planks, he flung back his head and roared, leaping for the sky, and that piercing blue canvas enveloped him in one of her clouds.
“I brought you a Coke,” Portia said from outside the room. “The food was a lie. I don’t cook. Cole just wanted me out of what little hair he has.”
I joined her on the deck, and that was as far as I made it before my knees buckled, and I sat down hard. “I’m a demon.”
“Pretty much.” She popped the top on the can and drank from it before passing it to me. “What? I don’t have cooties, and besides I saw you and Miller do this earlier. Do you know where his mouth has been? No, you don’t. While I, on the other hand, brushed my teeth for you. I even gargled with Lysol.”
I accepted the can, because it gave me something to do with my hands that wasn’t pulling out my hair. “Listerine.”
“Sure. Whatever.” She sat beside me so close the fabric of our shirts brushed. “It’s not so bad, is it? Being one of us?”
“No.” I wriggled the tab. “It’s just that I’ve been searching for where I belong my whole life.”
“And you didn’t expect it to be here.” She stretched out her long legs and crossed them at the ankles. “I get that. It’s just nice.” She nudged me with her knee. “Having the gang back together. One big, dysfunctional family.”
“Why don’t you hate me?” I glanced up at her. “How can you be so . . . nice?”
“Life was a misery before you arrived in Cael. As the youngest daughter in a family of thirty, and a runt to boot, I had no value. I was a piss-poor fighter, I had never killed anyone of note in battle, and I had no reputation to shield me.
“My father sold me into marriage three years before you arrived. My husband beat me, shared me with his men, and—you can imagine the rest. I might have let him live had he not crushed my eggs as I laid them. Those were my children, regardless of who their father might have been, they were mine. And I failed them as I had been failed.
“When you arrived, when you unleashed Cole and Miller. Gods, Miller.” Her eyes gleamed with the memory. “You promised me vengeance in exchange for fealty. I bent my knee to you, and we razed my little corner of the world. We hunted each lover that had been forced upon me, and we slaughtered them. And months later, when at last I located my coward of a husband, I ripped out his primary heart with my claws and fed it to him in strips. The secondary I gifted Miller while it was still inside his carcass.” She raised her pant leg, and a thin band of rose gold shone at her ankle. “I was already a slave, but when I left with you, I chose my master. I have never regretted the bargain we struck, and I never will.”
Words caught in my throat. Horror at what she had done, the reckoning I had helped unleash, shriveled my gut to the size of a raisin. But what had been done to Portia . . . to her unborn children . . . that was so much worse. The acts so vile I had difficulty dredging up the guilt that ought to be choking me.
Later. I would process all of this later. Alone in my room, in the quiet, when I could look inside myself and wait to see what stared back. That’s when I would shatter. Not here. Not now. Not when so many others depended on me to keep putting one foot in front of the other. For Maggie I would not stumble.
“There are worse fates,” she told me. “This life—at least it’s not boring.”
“What about the others?” Santiago had no love for me. Cole . . . I smacked down that thought so fast I gave myself whiplash. But Miller didn’t seem to mind me and neither did Thom. “Are they here willingly?”
“No, sweet cheeks, they’re not. Not all of them. And don’t waste your breath asking me for the scoop. Each of us deserves the chance to tell you our own story the way we remember it. Maybe not the way you do.”
“How is this possible?” I held out my hands and examined the lines and scars and creases. No hint of claw or scale showed. What kind of monster was I that I could hide so well in plain sight? “I’m a cop. My job is to uphold the law, to protect innocents. Not enslave them.”
“Irony, am I right?” Portia ground her knuckle into the skin over my heart. “Some part of you must be aware of Conquest deep down. That kind of demon can’t be contained forever. That you’ve managed this long—if you’ve managed this long—is miraculous.” More confirmation that no one believed I was who I said I was, which, I guess, was fair considering I had the same problem believing them when they claimed I was who they said I was too. “Who knows? Maybe this incarnation is about atonement.” Sudden laughter exploded from her, and she doubled over holding her stomach. “Phew, boy. That was a good one. The Remorseful Conqueror.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “The upstanding citizen shtick, acting like you care for your fellow man, that’s what makes this all so unbelievable.”
“Me as a mass murderer you believe,” I said, stunned, “but me as a cop—that’s suspicious to you?”
“When you’ve known Conquest for as long as we all have, yes. It is. She doesn’t turn over new leaves. She crushes them in her fist just to hear them crinkle, then sets the tree they fell from on fire after chopping it down and marking all the acorns from its line for death by boll weevil. That’s a thing, right? No? Maybe I’m thinking about cotton.”
“I can’t absorb this.” I tossed back the sugary soda, hoping the caffeine might kick my brain into gear. “There’s a tiny voice in my head that’s screaming and running in circles.”
“You do appear to be mostly human,” she mused. “Maybe we should have been more strategic when dropping our truth bombs.”
The rumble of an engine and the sound of gravel crunching under tires announced we had company.
“Who goes there?” Portia called. “Luce and I are bonding over old war stories. Mostly hers. She doesn’t even remember them, which is heartbreaking when you reflect on it. I mean, that’s her lives’ work gone. Poof. She could live and die as this skin sack she’s wearing, and all that history would be lost.”
When no smartass response was forthcoming, I got a bad feeling and pushed to my feet. Portia rose beside me, and together we crossed the deck and circled around to the parking area where five SUVs sat, one of them idling.
“Thom.” I recognized him first, blood smearing his cheek, and broke into a run. “He’s hurt.” Portia beat me to the SUV and yanked open the door. He spilled out into her arms, and she lowered him onto the ground. I dropped to my knees and checked his pulse. “Thom, can you hear me?”
His eyelids fluttered, and a string of rasped words impossible for me to untangle eased past his lips. Portia didn’t have that problem. She launched into a fluid glide of conversation while I sat there worse than useless. Who could I call? Not the paramedics. Not even Cole. Dragons didn’t carry cellphones.
A moan rose from the darkened interior of the SUV, and I ducked in to check the backseat.
“Portia,” I called. “Santiago’s on the bench.” I killed the ignition, slid out, then yanked the rear door open. “Hey, asshat. Open your eyes if you can hear me.”
He cracked his lids a fraction and growled. “Hands off.”
“I’m certified in first aid, CPR and AED.” Touch was unavoidable, so I tugged my sleeves down over my palms and pinned them in place with my fingertips. Hooking my arms under his, I hauled him out and then eased him onto the ground. “Show me where it hurts.”
Santiago grimaced and curled in on himself. “Nothing hurts.” He hissed at me. “Get lost.”
“Stop being a dick,” Portia snapped. “Let her help.”
Snarling at us both, he exposed his stomach and the ropes of intestines spilling through his fingers. “Do not vomit on me. I’m already pissed off as it is.”
Grateful as I was when that frost crackled over my heart, and the panicked voice shrieking in my head silenced, I questioned for the first time if it was—as I had always assumed—a byproduct of my training, or if it was a remnant of Conquest’s battle-hardened personality embedded so deeply into my psyche I could wrap that calm around myself like a blanket.
“How fast do you heal?” I gripped his shoulder and pushed him flat on his back. “I can stuff this back into you, but I need to know if it’s going to take. Do I need to sew you shut?”
“Fast,” he snapped. “I might heal . . . before I can . . . ”
“Bite down on this.” I leaned to the right and hauled a dead limb closer, then snapped off a fat stick. “Scream if you feel the need.”
Teeth flaking bark into his mouth, he growled, “I’m not going to—”
I sank my hands into the slimy wet lengths of his innards, shoving them into the bulging gash across his lower stomach, and his eyes rolled back in his head. I packed it all in and pressed my palms end-to-end to hold his guts where they belonged. As I watched, his skin knit together, fusing in an angry red line. I had a fingertip in the wound below his navel when the flesh began mending, and when I withdrew, it nursed on my nail.
The icy calm might have admired his rapid healing ability, coveted it even, but I suppressed a disgusted shudder. Even cocooned deep within myself, I had limits. Santiago had been right to worry I might lose my lunch on him. With him out of danger, I jerked out of that headspace and gave myself a minute to get used to the rush of heightened emotions around me again.
“What did you do?” Portia asked in a quiet voice. “Where did you go just now?”
“I locked down my panic at seeing a man’s guts writhing like worms on the ground, and I handled the situation.” I sucked in a few more breaths, grateful for the humid air warming me from the inside out. “How’s Thom?”
“Better off than Santiago.” She scratched her nails over his scalp. “It’s hard to take down Thom. He’s our medic. Most of his bodily fluids can be used for medicinal purposes.” Her eyes danced when she caught me wrinkling my nose. “You should see your face right now. You’re wondering how you healed from your injuries so fast, and which of his body parts donated the miracle drug.”
“What could have done this to them?” I asked, knowing full well the answer.
“Another demon. A higher demon.” She glanced back at the SUV, but I assured her it was clear. “We need to touch base with Miller.”
“This morning he was working on the Claremont case.” It had been hours since his last update, which I had taken to mean good things since the alternative sucked. “Where would he go?”
“Anywhere with strong brew and quick refills.” Portia frowned at Santiago, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “He’s such a bastard.”
“No argument here.” I read between the lines. “He’s your friend.”
“Yeah, I guess I’d piss on him if he was on fire.” She thumped him on the head. “Just don’t tell him about the friends thing, or I’ll never hear the end of his proposed benefits list.”
“My lips are sealed.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at my hands. “Let me wash up, and I’ll call Miller for a check-in.” I got to my feet and decided swamp water would have to do. I didn’t want to leave gore on the doorknobs while I searched for a bathroom. Assuming these demons used the facilities in the same sense as me. “Will you need help bringing them in?”
“Nah.” She crossed her legs and sat in the gravel. “I’ll wait for them to wake. It shouldn’t take long. An hour or so. Thom worked some mojo on Santiago, or he’d be dead right about now. They need rest, and I don’t want to risk moving either of them.”
Nodding, I set off to the water’s edge and knelt to scrub my hands clean with grit from the silty bottom. I risked a glimpse at my wavering reflection, but she only stared back at me. I blinked first, too afraid of what might emerge if I watched her for too long. After wiping my palms dry on a clean part of my shirt, I dialed Miller. He answered on the first ring. “That was fast.”
“I was expecting a call from Santiago.” Irritation spiked his voice. “He was doing a wipe job at the hospital and promised to get back with me—”
“Damn it.” Shocked by the guys showing up wearing their insides on their outsides, I had overlooked a serious problem. “Jane is at the hospital without a guard.”
“Come again?”
“Santiago and Thom were attacked.” I blotted my knuckles long after the skin dried. “They’re in bad shape, but Portia says they’ll recover. Both of them will be out of commission for a while, though.”
“Meet me there?” he said a beat later.
“Like you have to ask.” I ended the call, jogged to Portia and filled her in on what few bits she hadn’t caught with her super hearing. “Can I borrow a car?”
“Take number three. She’s usually mine, so she’s full on gas and not overflowing with takeout garbage.” She tossed me a set of keys from her pocket. “Stop waffling. Miller needs backup. I can cover these two.”
“What about Cole?” I closed my fingers over warm metal. “Do you have a way to warn him?”
“He never stays gone long,” she assured me, a heaviness in her gaze. “I’ll fill him in when he gets back. Be careful out there.”
“You too.” I climbed in the berry-scented SUV, cranked up the AC, then spun gravel in my haste. Juiced on adrenaline, I almost ignored the ringing of my cell, but I couldn’t afford to miss an update. Not with so many irons on the fire. “Boudreau.”
“Dougherty,” the detective grunted in response. “Thought you’d want to know we traced the call Maggie made at the emergency vet clinic to Justin Sheridan. Turns out he routes his calls through an answering service during his business trips. The phone system went down the night before Maggie disappeared, and their rep says when the service is interrupted, messages accumulated during that time don’t automatically resend. Sheridan had no idea there was an issue until we contacted him.”
“Did you hear the message?” The air whooshed from my lungs. “What did Maggie say?”
“There were two, actually. The first one came in around seven on the morning she disappeared. She mentioned leaving her phone at your house and told Sheridan to call the school if he needed her before four. In the last call, the one from the vet clinic, she confirmed she was with Robert Martin and apologized for running late for dinner. She promised to be home soon.” He hesitated. “We’ve issued an APB on Martin. I’ll let you know when we have him in custody.”
“Thanks.” A lump clogged my throat, and I couldn’t swallow past my guilt. Had I returned her phone, she could have called for help. We might have tracked her cell signal. But I hadn’t prioritized her, and I might not get the chance to correct that mistake. “I appreciate the update.”
“Anytime, Boudreau.” He gentled his tone. “I’ll do my best for your friend.”
“I know you will.” And because it was my fault his workload had just doubled, I forced out, “I’m sorry about Buck. I heard he’s expected to make a full recovery.”
“Bastard just wanted a vacation if you ask me.” He huffed, trying to sound miffed while concern thickened his voice. “His sister is going through an ugly divorce. She moved in with her three kids, all under five, and his house is a zoo. He probably broke his own leg to escape.”
I shared a laugh with him because he seemed to need one and signed off with my thanks.
Thanks to Maggie, we had a lock on Robert Martin. Now it was time to nail his ass to the wall.
But first I had to meet Miller and secure Jane. Even if choosing them felt like letting Maggie down. Again.