No, that was not all. I wanted more. More time to explore who I was, what I was, what this all meant. I wanted to meet Ezra face-to-face, just once, and ask him why. Why the calls? Why spare me from that all-consuming pain yet leave me to this? Why build me up to watch me fall? Or had he been patching me together in order to set this chain of events into motion? Who was he to me? To War? To any of us? And what did it matter? He was never where or when I needed him. Tonight would be no different. We were on our own.
“You sell yourself cheaply,” War sighed, bored of me already. “But who am I to complain?”
A snippet of memory niggled at me. Her story about how Conquest had spared Cole’s family and yet damned them with the same twist of phrase had me amending my request.
“I want to hear from your own lips that you will release them, and no, I don’t mean release as in death. I want them to live. Call them each by name and swear to me that you will not harm them or theirs. I want vows from each member of your coterie as well.” On and on I kept going, praying our rescuers wouldn’t arrive too late, expounding until I could see no possible loopholes, adding in the names of all those I wanted safeguarded while knowing that by excluding others, I damned them. “Give me those assurances, and you can have me.”
“Very well,” she agreed with a huff of annoyance. “Is there anything else?”
First, before I bargained my life away, I checked in with Thom. Dad was banged up, but he was conscious and alert. Confused. Afraid. Pissed. But he was mostly okay.
“Tell me what happened at the school the night you took Maggie.” Closure was a pathetic substitute for bringing her home, but it would provide her family with answers, and that was all I had left to give. Even if taking this deal meant leaving White Horse to convey what my obedience had bought. “We tracked her to the vet clinic. Why did Martin return her to the school?”
“You are a curious thing, aren’t you?” War deliberated over my request. She must have decided there was no harm confiding in me. “His orders were to lure your friend into his vehicle, then transport her to the subdivision where Thanases and I awaited them, but your Maggie didn’t take her kidnapping well. Martin refused to pull into the faculty parking lot, and she flung open her door and rolled out of a moving car, rather than wait and see where he took her.”
Pride so fierce it burned filled my chest. She had fought back. Had she been up against humans rather than demons, she might have succeeded in saving herself. “Why take the dog to the vet? Why not have Martin bring Maggie straight to you?”
“I’m not without soul.” She bristled with genuine offense. “Dogs are fiercely loyal creatures. Of course I saw to its care.” She glared daggers at Martin. “Was it so much to ask that you use another cat?”
Yes, by all means let’s get offended over War’s minion harming an innocent dog rather than the kidnapping and mutilation of human beings. The cat dig wasn’t lost on me either. She must have planned on using Conquest’s affinity for felines to rub salt in the wound.
I cleared my throat to cut off his pitiful attempts at justifying his choice of sacrifice.
“Okay, so that explains the blood we found on the sidewalk.” Martin must have scooped up Maggie, injured or dazed from her stunt, and stuffed her back in his car. “Why attack the SUV?”
“I had no choice.” Another cutting glare left Martin cowering. “Martin called for backup when your friend proved difficult, and I was closest. He recovered Maggie after her rather unfortunate antics just as I arrived, but I scented you upwind of me and hid to observe you.
“At that point, I had no idea if you’d realized Martin was responsible for the Claremont girl’s disappearance. You might have been there to question him, arrest him. Or you might have been there on behalf of your friend. But she hadn’t been gone long. A few hours. You might not have noticed her missing yet. And if you hadn’t, well, I wasn’t about to let you pick up her trail while it was so fresh. So I was forced to provide a distraction while Thanases and Martin secured her.”
That explained why there had been no demon blood mixed in with the sample we took from the Uptons’ property. Thanases hadn’t been injured. He must have carried Maggie on his back while in his demonic form to make hauling her through the tunnel easier, and her blood had become ink for his footprints.
Done indulging me, War arched her eyebrows. “Anything else?”
I had but one question left, and I relished the asking of it. “How’s your eye?”
“Much better after a good meal. Thank you so much for asking.” War smoothed a finger over the afflicted lid. “I would ask you to pass along my apologies to your partner, I do hate adding to the poor man’s workload, but alas, your association ends tonight. He will have to muddle through his burdens alone.”
The petty victory I’d exacted by reminding War I had hurt her evaporated, leaving her the clear winner.
Another life destroyed to satisfy her taste for chaos. Another soul never laid to rest. Another family whose cries for justice would go unanswered. Choosing my own family, my own friends, over her nameless, faceless victims made me complicit in her crimes. But my decision had been made, and there was no backing down now. I wouldn’t even if she gave me an out. I might be going to hell, but at least I was selecting my own handbasket.
“Any other pesky matters of conscience?” War prompted me.
Yes. More than I could voice in a lifetime. “No.”
“Good.” She clasped her hands together. “Let’s begin.”
The entire process stretched for over an hour during which time no cavalry arrived. Confident I had protected my family, friends and coterie to the best of my ability, I prepared to rest my neck on the chopping block. Conquest had yet to make an appearance, even to save her own hide, so I fully expected War to set about torturing me once the air cleared of our agreement. I also fully expected her to kill me to get to her sister. Mortal bodies break, and Conquest seemed attached to mine.
“Luce, you can’t do this.” The rasp of Cole’s voice from his mangled throat jerked my attention to where he sat in a chair now upholstered with his blood. “Conquest is too dangerous for War to control.” His wide palms gripped the armrests of Dad’s chair until they splintered. “You condemn this terrene with your actions.”
“Earth was condemned the second I woke, according to you.” I was no savior. This terrene would fall the same as all the others. At least this bought them time. At least this severed their ties to me. They would live free for however short a time. “Watch over Dad for me?”
The frustrated growl pouring from his mouth put my worries at ease. Dad was in good hands. The best.
War hooked her arm through mine, lifting me to my feet, forcing me to lean on her to regain my balance. Thanases settled his black gaze on me, but it flickered to Ida seconds later. She bobbed her head and exited the house through the kitchen without another word, returning to her post I assumed.
“Soak it in,” she urged me. “This is the last time you’ll see this place or these people.”
The old house had seen better days. The tarp covering the ruined bay window resembled a black hole flapping in the soft breeze. The pictures on my lifetime achievement wall hung at odd angles. Mud had been tracked in, and the scent of rot blotted out the usual gun oil and burnt toast smell of the house. I lingered on Dad, memorizing his features, knowing she would refuse me a last hug for the simple reason I wanted one. I smiled at Thom, who had, at some point, bitten Dad if his dazed expression was any indication. Thank you, I mouthed. Better if he slept through this next part. Cole I saved for last. His fury was a palpable hum in the air, bathing my skin in chills. That he cared if I lived or died humbled me. I didn’t deserve his consideration. Not after what I had done to him, his family, his entire world.
“Now that protocol has been observed,” War said, “I must ask if your conditions are satisfied.”
Having endured the protracted spectacle that was the consummation of a demon bargain, I got how she might have thought creating Jane and using that nascent bond of sisterhood to coax me through the steps would be simpler than all the arm-twisting it otherwise required.
“I am satisfied.” Not happy, but no one had it all.
“Repeat after me.” She linked fingers with me. “I do so swear fealty to my most beloved sister . . . ”
The swearing-in ceremony lasted twice as long as it had taken me to extract vows from her and her entire coterie. I doubted that was a coincidence. At the end of the proceedings, I felt the exact same as I had at the beginning. The binding must have worked, though, because War kissed me on both cheeks and hugged me close.
“We are going to have so much fun,” she promised. “Starting with your archduke.” Her eyes gleamed with feral intent. “Finish what my beloved started.”
“You swore,” I spat, recoiling from her.
“I own you. You own him. Therefore, I own him by default. That means he is mine to do with as I see fit.” Oh, she was pleased with the trap she had constructed. “He is a distraction, a weakness. Just look what you bargained away for him. Your life. As though you were equals.” Her nails bit into my skin. “I want him gone.”
“No.” I set my jaw. “Take your broken oaths and stick them where the sun don’t shine.”
“I ordered you to end him.” Her glee morphed into startled disbelief. “Why aren’t you ending him?”
“She is not bound.” Thanases pursed his full lips. “Her aura has not changed.”
This crackpot saw auras? I smoothed my hands down my sides, feeling the same as always.
“On. Your. Knees.” War pointed an imperious finger at the floor. “Now.”
The order slid off me, the same as if I had never taken the oath to serve her.
“No.” I blessed Thom again for sending Dad into a deep sleep, even if he might not reawaken if War went nuclear. “You’re a liar. I can’t trust you to keep your word. You broke your oath, and in so doing released me from mine.”
War let her gaze go distant. “I see it now. A single thread of compulsion.” War flexed a finger in the air as though plucking a harp string. “Delicate work. Very fine. You are owned, sister.” Her teeth clacked together. “But not by me.”
“Then who?” Cole demanded.
War blinked the room into focus. “That is the question, isn’t it?”
The grim news drained the color from Cole’s face; even his ice chip eyes dulled. Thom hadn’t fared much better. Had he been in his demonic form, his nub of a tail would have been twitching.
“This is a most unfortunate discovery. I don’t much care for surprises. The introduction of new players so early in the game . . . ” Despite her words, her voice lilted with pleasure. The idea appeared to pique her interest more than her present company. “This will require an altogether new strategy.” She meandered toward the kitchen and the gaping hole punched through the rear of the house, trailing her fingers down Thanases’s arm in passing. “Kill her caretaker, incapacitate the others, and burn the house down around them. We must keep applying pressure until she breaks. She’s no use to us until she regains her senses.” She clapped her hands. “Make it quick. We have preparations to make before Famine arrives. At least I can count on her to make this interesting.”
A bellow that rattled the stars pulled her up short, and the blood drained from her face. Miller. It had to be. War snapped her fingers, and Mrs. Upton leapt from the stairs and trotted to her side, too brainwashed to care if she was cannon fodder.
“We’ll continue this discussion once you’re more yourself,” War tossed over her shoulder.
The two exited through the flapping tarps sealing the ruined kitchen from the outdoors.
Blocking out dread over what else might be prowling in the night, I tore after her. A sharp yank snapped my head back and forced me to stop or scalp myself. Martin. The little weasel.
“Your friend cried your name when I tasted her.” He grinned at me, his teeth rows of dagger-sharp blades in an all-toohuman mouth. “Sweet blood these mortals have, and you smell so very like them, mistress.”
I sank my elbow in his gut and stomped on his instep. He grunted but held firm. I had to get free. I had to reach the closet. Panic edged my vision, and I sank into the cold place on reflex. The details of the room sharpened as the chill embraced me. I reached over my shoulder, cupped the back of his skull, and raked the side of his face with my fingernails. This time, he howled with pain and loosened his grip enough I could break his hold while sacrificing another fistful of hair. I was going to have serious bald spots when this was over. I just hoped I lived long enough to need Rogaine.
I ran full-tilt down the hall. I passed Thom, who crouched protectively over Dad, and spared a glance for Cole, who was locked in battle with Thanases.
Spinning the combination on the gun safe required time I didn’t have with Martin barreling after me, so I altered my course, looped through the kitchen and aimed for the staircase. Mr. Upton had leapt the bannister in an attempt to circle behind Thom. I darted out of his reach, leapt over Dad and scrabbled up the steps. Martin landed almost on top of me, and I mule-kicked him. He smacked the floor on his back but sprung up like a jack-in-the-box. I gripped the railing, hauled myself up and ran to the second floor. I skidded into my bedroom, slammed the door shut and locked it, then ran to my bedside table and removed my service weapon from the top drawer.
The door exploded inward as I flipped off the safety. Martin lunged for me, and I emptied an entire clip into him. He hit his knees, blood pouring down his shirtfront, but he kept crawling after me, and the bastard was healing before my eyes. I jogged over to my duty belt and unsnapped the handcuffs. I doubted they’d hold him long, but they’d work for now. I snapped one bracelet on him and dragged him out into the hall. After looping the chain through a thick post on the staircase, I clicked the other in place.
With one demon down, I rocketed down the stairs to assist the guys with theirs and discovered they didn’t need my help after all. Thom, winged and furry, sat on Dad’s chest. Having read an article once about a cat suffocating someone that way, I shooed him off before asking a favor. “Can you get him out of here? Take him to Uncle Harold’s, please.”
“Mmmrrrrpt.”
Leaving Thom to his change, I advanced on Cole. The bodies of Mr. Upton and Ida Bell lay side-by-side on the carpet before him. Mr. Upton’s head was missing, and Cole was making quick work of hers.
Decapitation. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Oh yeah. Normal people used carving knives for things like turkey or ham . . . not human esophaguses. Clamping a hand over my mouth, I excused myself onto the back porch where I emptied my stomach on the lawn.
That’s when I spotted her—them. Portia stood over a shadowy lump with a delicate sword in one hand. I wiped my mouth and joined her. The last tingles of cold had faded, and I couldn’t summon that calm a second time. Not when I was staring down at my best friend. What remained of her.
“Maggie,” I breathed, knees caving without my permission. “Oh, God.”
“I’m sorry, Luce.” Portia sheathed the blade in a leather holster that hugged her spine. “Santiago pinged me after Thom activated his emergency beacon, but I was deep in the swamp and—”
Maggie’s skin was cool to the touch. I fought my instinctive recoil and forced myself to check her pulse. A tear had splashed against her skin before I accepted there was no flutter beneath my fingertips.
“Luce.” Portia rubbed her hands together as though they ached. “I can’t make any promises, but there might be a way to bring her back.”
“How?” Suspicion honed my voice to a razor edge that matched her sword. “I can’t deal with zombies being real too.”
“Do you remember when we first met, I mentioned how I was going to miss this body?”
Now that I knew demons wore human suits, I had an idea of where this was headed. “No.” I cut my hand through the air. “I remember, but no.”
“I’m different from the others. I can’t manifest my own skin. My people are symbiotic. We require cohabitation with another organism in order to survive.”
“Maggie is not going to become a skin suit like Martin and the Uptons.” I stared back at the house, thinking of the corpses within that once claimed humanity before striking their bargains. “She is—was—my best friend.”
“I don’t take skins, Luce. I live within a host, like I’m doing now.” She thumped her fist against her chest. “This woman is alive. She bargained with me for the use of her body.” Anticipating my next question, she added, “We agreed to a five-year term, and that contract ends next month.” She must be psychic, because she guessed my next one too. “She had breast cancer. I cured her. That was the trade. Five years in exchange for a chance to live into her golden years.”
“Maggie is dead.”
“Try her wrist.” Portia tested each, then showed me where to put my fingers. “It’s not much, but it might be enough.”
A whisper of a pulse, so faint I might have imagined it, had me asking, “What are the terms?”
“Three years is the best I can do. Less than that, and I won’t survive the transfer to a new host.”
Hope really was the worst thing that could happen to a person. “You can heal her?”
“Yes.” She touched Maggie’s swollen cheek. “With Thom’s help, I think we can save her.”
“What will it mean if she’s your host?” As though I had any right to ask for clarification, to even contemplate this deal.
“We’ll share her body. Usually one of my stipulations is full control of a host. Her mind would sleep through the term and awaken when I leave. Her memories will be intact up to that point, and she’ll have no knowledge of my actions.” She peered up at me. “For you, I’m willing to attempt to share. It may not work. It might prove too much for Maggie. Human minds are delicate. She might have to be put in stasis in order to preserve her sanity. I can’t make you any promises.”
“I can’t make this decision for her.” I balked from the magnitude of what Portia offered. “She has a life, a career—friends and family. She has a fiancé. She’s getting married in five months.”
“I can fake it with her family. Probably. I’ll have access to her memories, and that gives me a template to build on. She probably wouldn’t thank me for sleeping with her man for three years, so that’s out. Teaching is also not my gig. I don’t do kids. I just . . . I can’t be around young.” Portia sighed. “Honestly? The best thing for all those involved is if she drops off the face of the earth. Three years from now, she wakes up and picks up her life where she left off.”
Except her dream job would have hired someone new. Her fiancé might have found someone else. Or maybe worse, he might not have let her go. Her family would have grieved until even her miraculous return might not heal all the wounds her absence inflicted. Her whole life would be packed up in dusty boxes in a storage building somewhere.
Maggie would lose everything. No. Maggie had already lost everything.
Portia was offering a means of giving it back. All I had to do was sign away three years of her life.
“This is all my fault.” I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked. “She never would have been targeted if not for her friendship with me.”
“We’re almost out of time,” Portia murmured. “You have to decide.”
The vibration in my back pocket gave me an out, and coward that I was, I took it. “Boudreau.”
“I’m a father.” Rixton’s joy soured my mouth. “I’m holding seven pounds and eight ounces of Annette Marjoram Rixton.”
“Congratulations.” A veil of tears curtained my vision. “How’s Sherry?”
“Tired. Gorgeous. Snoring.” Pride beat at me across the line. “She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Annette?”
“No.” He got choked up on his next breath. “My wife.”
A sob broke free of my chest, a reminder the cycle of birth and death were intertwined, and I wiped my cheeks dry. “Call me when you’re ready for visitors, okay?”
Lost to the cooing sighs of his brand-new baby girl, he didn’t find my sniffles odd or notice the catch in my voice.
“You can be the first non-relative to hold her,” he promised. “I’ll save you a spot in line.”
On a watery laugh, I signed off before the sorrow arrowing through my chest pierced his bubble of perfect happiness. Maggie and I should have been fighting over dibs with a mean hand of paper, rock, scissors. But I would never lose to her again. Unless . . .
Portia could save Maggie’s life, give her a future. She could wind back the hands on the clock. Make things like they used to be. Almost. But wasn’t almost better than nothing?
Hating my weakness, knowing what I did next was an act of pure selfishness, I croaked out, “Do it.” I wobbled to my feet, unable to sit there and watch. “Save her.”
In my haste to escape what I had done, I backed into a warm wall of muscle. Cole. I turned in his arms and pressed my face against his chest. Santiago had been right about me. Thom too. I broke the people I loved. I ruined them. I couldn’t seem to help it. And worst of all, I was too weak to let them go, to force them to let me go too.
Cole didn’t yell at me or absolve me. He didn’t tell me I’d done the wrong thing or the right one. He held me to keep me from flying apart, and he shielded me from the scene playing out behind me. His strength anchored me, and I leaned on him as I faced Portia and the consequences of my actions.
“Miller and Santiago dispatched the other members of War’s coterie. Nineteen in all. She must have laid a clutch and waited for them to hatch as part of her preparations. That explains the delay in her confronting you.” And the reason why we had heard Miller’s bellows, but he had never materialized. “Santiago’s wounds were reopened in the skirmish, but Miller walked away unscathed.”
“And War?” I hadn’t seen where Thanases had gone. “Did she get away?”
“Portia arrived in time to intercept her, but War tugged on her bond with Thanases before she sustained much damage. He bolted from the living room before I could finish what he started. Miller’s already gone. He carried Santiago back to our base while Portia stayed with Maggie.”
“What about Mrs. Upton?” Hers had been the only corpse missing from among the lower demons.
“Miller” was all he needed to say.
“Can you get Portia and Maggie to your base?” I couldn’t bear looking at Cole. I was too afraid he would condemn me for the choice I had made. “Shit’s about to hit the fan. You guys need to be gone before that happens.”
“Luce.”
“Please don’t.” I sucked in a shuddering breath. “I can’t deal with you hating me right now.”
“Hate comes easy.” He traced my jaw with his fingertip. “This doesn’t feel easy.”
“You should go.” I withdrew from his touch. “Get somewhere safe and stay there.”
“You really have changed,” he murmured before shifting into his sleek dragon form and lifting the women in his gentle claws.
Before tonight I might have crowed my victory in establishing my own identity with him, but grief had tightened my throat, and I didn’t feel like talking anymore. War had landed some deep blows that might not heal as fast as the bruising on my ribs. She had called me a shell, believed that enough pressure would shatter my human façade, and as much as I wanted to call her a liar, tonight . . . tonight might have given me my first cracks.