Big Demon Energy (Bedeviled AF #1) Paperback

Chapter 1

After five months, dozens of sleepless nights, and enough caffeine to fuel a large city, we were so close to capturing our targets, I could almost taste it. The storm clouds had even parted, the full moon beaming its golden light upon my partner and me in encouragement.

That’s when a vampire blew in and wrecked our momentum. Unnecessarily gaunt, with nails sharpened to mini spears like some beauty influencer, and black hair lacquered to his skull, all he needed was a drop of blood at the corner of his mouth and he could star in his own B movie. See the Creature of the Night prowl! Scaaarrrrrrry!

“Get thee behind me, asshat!” I splashed through a puddle, waving the irritant away from the entrance to this abandoned laundromat in East Vancouver.

Sachie Saito, my best friend and fellow operative on this investigation, snickered, jumping a piece of loose asphalt in our parking lot mad dash. “Bleh bleh bleh.”

Hissing, the vampire cracked his neck and bodychecked me. “I’ll bleh you first, bitches.”

Rude. I regained my footing, ready to take him out, but Sachie was on it.

“Bring it.” Sach ripped a thin wooden stake free of its thigh holster and dropped into a fighter’s crouch. She looked like a tall warrior pixie with her gamine spiky cut and the stretchy dress she’d worn to the office that morning that matched her fire engine red hair. “Then I’ll see how many of your holes I can shove this into in thirty seconds. My current record is seven,” she added helpfully.

The vampire furrowed his heavy brow, counting under his breath. He got to three—holes, presumably—then snarled, snatched the stake away, and snapped it with a chilling smile.

We’d had enough bumps in this case without this jerk throwing us off course before we’d reached the finish line. Those two humans we’d been chasing had a slim head start, but every second spent dealing with the bloodsucker added to the odds of them getting away.

I flashed my gold ring identifying me as a Maccabee. “Listen up. A) You have no authority to stop us or demand shit, which the undead landlord of this joint knows, and B⁠—”

Sach grabbed a broken piece of wood back from the vampire and staked him in the heart.

His jaw went slack, his body paralyzed, then he fell apart like puzzle pieces and crumbled to ash.

I wrenched the cracked glass door open from its bloated frame. “B) Never take your eyes off the one with the stake.”

“Rookie,” Sach spat, barreling inside with a trail of powdery footprints. “We should ask the Spook Squad to find out who his boss is and remind him not to fuck with our portal access.”

I shook my head. “It’s such a simple concept, yet so hard for some of these vamps to understand.”

We raced over dirty cream and mint tiles, sidestepping the broken metal table lying on its side. Fluorescent light fixtures hung down like stalactites between exposed pipes while a lonely washing machine missing its glass was tagged in layers of paint.

Employees of the undead landlords who controlled this three-block radius were already scurrying past the small houses nestled close together and local businesses like the popular taqueria to tattle on the two Maccabee operatives who’d killed a minion and were headed through the rift. Information was power, in the human and supernatural worlds, and the vamps in charge probably had files on us with details down to my shoe size. I filed it under “know thy enemy,” but it still freaked me out if I dwelled on it.

My only consolation was that if they knew my biggest secret, the one that could unravel my life, they’d have used it against me by now.

I shielded my eyes with a hand against the harsh glare of sunlight spilling out from the back office. “It’s a balmy ‘Satan’s asshole is steaming’ day in the Brink, folks.”

“Let’s stay safe, partner,” Sach said. “And if we can’t stay safe, then let’s crawl back out before we die. Better benefits for our loved ones.”

Closing our eyes so we wouldn’t be permanently blinded, we jumped into the rift, a portal to a liminal wasteland called the Brink that served as a barrier between earth and Babel, a vampire-controlled alternate reality.

There were about a dozen or so rifts worldwide; ours had been the last to be discovered about a hundred and fifty years ago, back when Vancouver was a fledgling city. They weren’t painful to traverse, more like a tight hug from a clingy relative that you wanted to get away from.

Happily, it only took a couple of seconds to get free of its embrace. I stepped into the Brink and took a deep breath, the arid atmosphere scorching my lungs, and let my vision adjust.

Heat shimmered off cracked earth which stretched into infinity. Suddenly, bent, wiry husks of trees with needle-sharp ragged bark exploded from the baked dirt, spraying soil and wood chips that almost took out my eyes. In less than two breaths, a dense forest with no protective canopy had been created.

The Brink always kept me on my toes. It presented different challenges each visit, even through the same portal. Last time I’d dealt with snowdrifts. Jury was still out on whether the needle-trees would be better. Both options were such delights.

Sach ran her fingers up the back of her neck, flicking sweat out of her hair. “I feel like I’m being punished for your sins.”

“Only six of them,” I said mournfully. “Lust hath forsaken me.”

“Why dost thou speak old-timey today?”

“I’m a whimsical woman.” I pressed the hollow above my left ulna, triggering a steady electric signal paired to my partner’s matching implant. It was the best communication solution we’d found since there was no cell reception in the Brink and the chaotic magic reduced walkie-talkies to a staticky nightmare. “Got a signal?”

“Confirmed,” she replied. “Happy hunting, Aviva.”

“You too.”

We split up, Sachie heading left through the tree graveyard while I went right. Unfortunately, there were no footprints to follow or scents of desperation to track.

Coming into the Brink was akin to Theseus entering the Labyrinth—except without any thread to find my way out again. That said, it was a freaking alternate reality, how could I not be enticed? Like the best seductions, it provided a heady emotional cocktail with complex flavors: a shot of disorientation, a generous pinch of anxiety, and a heavy splash of excitement, all shaken and poured into a glass crusted with sweet temptation.

I whipped off my navy suit jacket and draped it over my high, dark brown ponytail, attempting to form a makeshift visor with minimal success. Twenty steps later, my ankle boots and the hem of my slacks were already coated in dust.

I kept catching movement out of the corner of my eye, however, each time I spun to investigate, I came up empty. Just a trick of the light. I hoped. “Heloise, Clément,” I called out. “Turn yourselves in. Even if you make it to Babel, it’s hardly sanctuary.”

Our female suspect was Eishei Kodesh, a human with magic, but her husband had no powers. Not that it mattered; humans didn’t survive in the megacity of Babel without iron-clad contracts or protectors. Sometimes not even then.

I tilted my head, straining to hear a reply, but there was nothing save for the low moan of wind. That would have been fine had there actually been any hint of a breeze and not simply an evil, creepy taunt. I pressed forward, determined to find the married couple before anything else did, and wrap up this case.

The Toussaints had been running cons on the art world on three different continents, but my chapter had caught the case because they’d relocated to our city a couple of years back, believing that no one would look for them in Vancouver.

As far as cons went, it was simple: Heloise used her white flame magic to drive up emotions and thus prices on Clément’s Z-grade pieces. Not entirely unsurprisingly, what had started as a fraud case had gotten white-hot very quickly, ending in a spree of murders over ownership of a painting that looked like a feral cat vomited chalk on a dirty blackboard.

Sach and I fought to remain the prime investigators. We’d been on this assignment from the start, knew the ins and outs better than anyone, and we’d lived in their heads. This was our chance to prove ourselves on a complex investigation with high stakes, yet we wouldn’t have pushed so hard if we’d believed anyone else was more suited to catch the Toussaints.

There’d been a lot of grumbling from more experienced operatives when the director had granted our request—on a probationary basis. Step by step, Sachie and I had built our case and narrowed in on the Toussaints despite every obstacle and red herring they threw our way.

If we lost the fugitives now? I shook my head, refusing to imagine the icy follow-up with our Vancouver chapter head and the massive derailment of our career goals. Failure was not an option.

Not when we’d come this far.

Wiping sweat off my brow, I crept forward, my eyes darting throughout the ghostlike trees, seeking any signs of movement. It would have been great to have water or be wearing cooler clothing, but when Sach and I had arrived at our fugitives’ last known location in Vancouver’s swanky Shaughnessy neighborhood, we discovered they’d fled to the Brink. There wasn’t time to stock up on provisions, let alone change out of our business attire.

Survival would come down to my wits and my blue flame magic.

I pulled my shirt away from my slick skin, sweat rolling between my boobs, and my jacket now a warm, damp weight on my head. Blech. Suddenly, my shoulder blades prickled and my skin was dotted in goose bumps like I’d jumped into a cold swimming pool. My heartbeat sounded like footsteps growing closer, but despite the feeling of being watched and the sense of unease that settled in my gut, no one was there.

No one I could see, at least.

Spinning around for a third time and finding nothing, I touched the brushed gold pillbox ring on my right index finger for confidence. The top of its round compartment featured an embossed flame, the design circled by five tiny gems: one each in red, orange, yellow, white, and blue.

All human Maccabees received their rings upon graduating from Maccababy to level one operative, and we never took them off. The part of our initiation ceremony that meant the most to me was the moment we slid the rings onto our fingers and pledged the Maccabee motto: Tikkun olam. My vow to fix the wrongs in the world.

A large dark shape swooped down with a low, raspy screech, and I ducked, cursing. Supe-vultures were the only creatures native to the Brink. They’d been reported by operatives no matter which rift they came through. However, like everything else in this place, the birds’ appearance was random. They might show up seven visits in a row in one location, no matter what the weather or physical environment held, and then not be seen again for the next six months.

Supe-vultures were beady-eyed, sharp of claw, and had feather-free heads—all the better to keep from being matted with blood when they reached inside a carcass. They operated on a cycle of feed, hasten the death of anything that moved too slowly, and feed again. Eerily sentient, they were a by-product of the constant clash in this realm between demon magic and Mother Earth. What a gift.

Three birds circled above, showing their lack of respect with dinosaur-like cries and a strip of white shit that splattered less than two feet away, while the sun beat on me like a crotchety grandma with a wooden spoon greeting her husband, who was late for dinner—again.

Every step was a nightmare of cramping in my leg muscles. I licked salty moisture off my cracked lips, dimly aware that as bad as this heat exhaustion was, the next step was full-on heat stroke, then death. Best to live in the moment.

A high, thin cry pierced the air behind me. Pulse spiking, I called out for Sach. When she didn’t answer, I tapped my subcutaneous implant, changing it from a single pulse to two rapid pulses followed by a pause. Rinse and repeat.

Three heart-hammering cycles later, the signal returned to its original beat, and I gave a relieved sigh. Sachie was fine. She’d probably desiccated one of the supe-vultures with her orange flame magic.

I glanced up at the birds, tripping over a tree root that hadn’t been there ten seconds ago and bashing my shoulder on a listing tree. My jacket tore; my skin didn’t. I took the win.

Plus, my pain was rewarded. Sort of.

A badly sunburned Heloise and Clément Toussaint stood defiantly on either side of a doughy vampire, who sheltered them all with a golf umbrella made of some shiny iridescent material. It generated its own breeze and moved incrementally as its users did, so it always provided maximum shade.

The vamp smirked and spun the umbrella, showing off its amazing recalibrating abilities and generally flaunting the incredible technology he’d brought from Babel. Even low-level vamps had access to things humans wouldn’t see for ten or more years.

I narrowed my eyes. The vamp’s presence complicated things. I couldn’t easily slap magic-nulling cuffs on Heloise with him acting as her protector, and I didn’t dare pull the small stake from my boot when I’d also have to contend with Heloise’s powers.

I surreptitiously tapped my wrist, changing my subcutaneous electric signal to a fast vibration. Code for “Get here now,” it lasted about five seconds before reverting to the regular signal, which Sach could follow back to me.

Then I let my magic out to get a better read on the human pair. All Eishei Kodesh were synesthetes. We Blue Flames saw our magic, though neither the synesthetic quality nor the magic itself was visible to anyone else.

My particular talent was illuminating people’s weaknesses. Got a scarred liver? A nicotine craving tightening your chest? If I studied a person with my magic sight, their vulnerabilities were illuminated in blue. They weren’t all physical, but those were the most basic tells.

Heloise and Clément were awash in blue due to their sunburns. Colored dots rapidly beat at their wrist and throat pulses, and there were navy splotches on the crowns of their heads. Heat stroke, what did I tell you?

A journey that took ten minutes one time in the Brink could take an hour or a day the next. By the looks of the couple, they’d been in here a lot longer than I had before meeting up with the vamp.

Heloise’s all-silk ensemble was a ruinous mess of dirt, pit, and crotch stains—ew—while Clément looked like an escapee from an old film noir in his linen suit, complete with cravat and a gold stick pin. Sorry, a villainous escapee. Interesting that for a supposed artist, there were no traces of paint or gesso on his hands, not a single callus, and no sign of skin damage from handling solvents. His nails were buffed to a high sheen, and his skin was pink and plump. Much like the rest of him.

The vamp could have been one blink away from keeling over, but I’d never know. Blue Flames couldn’t illuminate the undead.

I crossed my arms. “This is cozy. Did you bring a picnic basket? I enjoy a creamy brie on these outings, but I also prefer it lightly melted, not bubbling liquid, so let’s rain check that.” I nodded my chin at the vamp. “Hand the humans over and we’ll be on our way.”

More supe-vultures joined the party with loud, raucous cries.

“Willem is our escort,” Clément said in a heavy French accent.

“Like an undead Boy Scout? Cool.”

Willem hissed at me, his fangs descending, but even with vamp magic, I could tell he wasn’t a skilled fighter like me. We Maccabees worked damn hard to achieve our high level of physical conditioning. I didn’t have the muscle mass of some operatives, but my limbs were long and lean, both from training and all the running I did.

I unfurled a cruel smile and beckoned Willem forward. “Want to play?”

Maccabee protocol gave me leave to kill any vamps standing in the way of an investigation—though not at the expense of human casualties. Given that the Toussaints had brought the vampire into this, however, their well-being became a gray area.

Gray areas were such fun.

Willem tensed but didn’t move. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Only nippers, new vamps, shepherded humans through the Brink, which meant that he didn’t have the clout or connections to kill an operative and get away with it. Yet.

Lucky me.

Heloise fanned out her grimy silk blouse, her loose wisps of hair blowing around her face. “Give up, Maccabee.”

A sorrow as vast and dark as a sea swept through me. I crashed to my knees, my body hunched over, and wrapped an arm around my middle. She was right. What was the point of continuing? I’d never win. Not the war that mattered most. I was a fool to think otherwise.

“Pauvre chérie,” she cooed. “Thinking you stood a chance when you are—what is the word?” She snapped her fingers. “A mosquito playing with lions.”

A distant part of my brain insisted that I not let them get away, but who was I to stop them? I knew how the world saw me. Or would if the truth came out. Maybe I was better off lying down to die on the parched, brittle ground?

“Bien.” Heloise laughed. “Allons-y.” Heloise pivoted, and her heel snapped off. She stumbled, cursing.

A fog lifted off my brain like it had been vacuumed away, my confidence and determination to bring these two to justice flooding back in.

Oh, you cow.

White Flames were all about burning passions; they could amp up an emotion in another or follow their own all-consuming desire. There were a lot of con artists in this group, though it was also where many of the greatest scientists and artists were found.

Heloise, busy slipping her other shoe off and tossing it on the ground with its broken companion, didn’t glance up when I pushed to my feet.

“What do you think is going to happen when you get to Babel?” I said.

“Money opens many doors.” Clément gave a very Gallic shrug.

Before he finished speaking, I’d lunged for the umbrella.

Willem yanked the titanium handle into his chest, briefly tipping the canopy down and blocking me from his view.

That second was all I needed. I pushed hard on the canopy, sending Willem and Clément stumbling off-balance, while with my free hand I grabbed the magic-nulling cuffs out of my pocket and slapped them on Heloise.

Too bad that when the umbrella shifted, Willem didn’t sizzle like potatoes hitting the deep fryer. Sunlight didn’t affect vamps here in the Brink like it did to varying degrees back in the normal plane of existence.

“Whose money would that be?” I said genially. “Heloise’s? Vamps aren’t as susceptible to cons as humans are, Clément, so what would she need your shitty skills for anymore? You don’t even have magic.”

“How dare you? We didn’t con anyone.” Clément blustered like a puffer fish, but my synesthete magic vision revealed his true state: the blue circle over his heart pulsed faster.

A curl of excited energy unfurled inside me.

“My husband is a genius. I would never abandon him,” Heloise said loyally, rattling her cuffs like she could shake them off.

The signal between Sach and me grew stronger, indicating my partner was close. I swallowed down my nausea from baking alive out here, conscious of the scavengers circling us like we were the coveted seats in a game of musical chairs.

“You’re sticking with Clément through thick and thin?” I stroked my chin, pacing back and forth so I didn’t appear too near death. “Then why is Willem standing closer to you than to your husband, his body turned in toward yours? That’s not something a stranger does. Got some undead action happening on the side?”

Clément swung his head toward the vampire and his wife, his mouth slackening. Then he narrowed his eyes and clenched his hands into trembling fists.

To be clear, I was incapable of manipulating other people’s emotions or self-perceptions, but feelings were weaknesses, and in certain situations like this one, easy to decipher without my magic.

His wife reached for him, but he turned away.

“I would have gotten away with this if it wasn’t for you.” Still cuffed, Heloise walloped me with a right cross.

“Fuck!” I staggered back a couple of steps, gingerly probing my eye. Come on! The Scooby Gang never suffered bodily harm.

On Heloise’s follow-up swing, I grabbed the chain between her cuffs, twisted her wrists over her head, and yanked them down behind her back, though not hard enough to break anything.

She mewled like a kitten.

I pulled harder, practically drinking down the vivid blue rippling off her straining shoulders. “Hit me again and I won’t show such restraint. Dislocated shoulders don’t only affect the immediate area, you know,” I said conversationally. “They can impact muscles, veins, even blood vessels. And if arthritis sets in?” I made a “yikes” face. “Popping and locking aren’t just break-dance moves.”

A blue splotch flared up over Heloise’s heart, accompanied by a silky blue swathe along her side closest to Willem, while Clément’s entire body flushed navy. The space between him and the pair lit up in a vivid blue.

Fascinating. Heloise might have held the purse strings, but she was scared to lose Clément and mistrustful of Willem’s faithfulness, while her husband was jealous—not only of an alleged affair, but because he saw his human body as inferior to the vampire’s dadbod.

“T’es folle,” Heloise whimpered.

I forced her arms down behind her back another half inch. “I haven’t taken French for a long time,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure we’re not at the familiar form of address stage. Now, if you’d insulted me with respect, I might have stabilized your pulled shoulder with tape.” I patted myself down with one hand. “Except, damn. I didn’t bring any.”

Heloise was wheezing, her breathing labored like a child who’d run too far. Her torso pulsed with such a vivid blue that it almost hurt to look at; I had her on the ropes.

I pulled her cuffs taut, our skin brushing, and I jumped, zapped by an electric shock of static current. Pure adrenaline coursed through me like wildfire, my dizziness retreated, and my headache dialed down from Riverdance to a soft shuffle.

“As for Willem?” All I had to do was strain Heloise’s shoulders one more tiny inch and she’d tip over into a glazed agony. My body tightened in anticipation of that final rush. “He won’t stick around, vamps never do. And speaking frankly, this one doesn’t look like the sharpest tool in the shed.”

Gritting my teeth, I slackened my hold on her chains. No broken shoulders today.

Willem dropped the golf umbrella and sped toward me.

I shoved Heloise away, dropped into a low crouch, and headbutted the vamp in the gut.

Grabby Hands seized my hair in his fist and lifted me off the ground.

I scrabbled on tiptoe, smacking at his hand, and trying to save my poor scalp.

Suddenly, Willem contorted in a series of jolting movements. His skull warped and twisted, his arms shriveled into T-rex-like stumps, and he dropped me.

Ooh, nice. Sachie was using her heat magic to suck the moisture from his body.

Orange Flames radiated heat into or out of things: people, a log, the air, anything really. Sach could force my body heat to radiate out of me to the point of giving me a lethal case of hypothermia. That said, she couldn’t freeze a lake. Luckily, few Orange Flames were born with that level of power or had the years of training it would take to unlock widespread popsicle abilities. Which was good, because who wanted some Jack Frost wannabe icing cities?

She twirled a finger, magically pulling heat from the atmosphere to direct it into Willem. Her powers weren’t visible, nor did I feel the synesthetic temperature changes that my friend did from her orange flame talents, but the end results were plain to see.

Willem’s skin flushed a hot, angry red, and his body curled like bacon sizzling in a pan.

I rubbed my poor, throbbing head. “Cutting it close there, my friend.”

“Please. You had a good two or three seconds before your scalp came off.” Sachie winked, her cheeks merely flushed pink and not burned, thanks to the bubble of cool air she’d magically encased herself with.

“Try anything funny on the way back and you’ll get the same treatment.” I pointed from the Toussaints to Willem, who was making gurgling noises, bits of blackened flesh dropping off him.

The supe-vultures swooped down to feast.

Heloise vomited.

Jumping out of splatter range, I pulled a stake out of my boots and tossed it to my friend. “Don’t say I never gave you anything nice.”

“I’m the luckiest girl alive.” Sachie grinned, both her cheeks dimpling, then stabbed Willem in the heart, killing him for good.

“Do you plan to behave?” I said to our fugitives.

Clément nodded, his face draining of all color, though Heloise’s caterwauling caused my left eye to twitch.

“Good. Mission accomplished,” I said, picking up the golf umbrella. I stepped into the welcome coolness of its shadow, gave the handle a dainty twirl, and sighed deeply as the assault of the direct sunlight melted away into nothing. Vampire technology was truly something else.

Sachie wrangled a pair of cuffs onto Clément.

My physical relief was sweetened by the taste of victory.

Two vamps down, two bad guys apprehended, and two well-deserved promotions secured. Once the director congratulated me with the news, I’d treat myself to a great steak, and then, as a level three Maccabee, I’d be placed in charge of a tantalizing new investigation soon enough.

Leader. I breathed in the molten air of the Brink and smiled. It had a nice ring to it.