The Demon's Due (Bedeviled AF #5) | Ebook

The Brink tasted like ozone and fear, but I swallowed both as Alastair’s fingers dug into my arm. While I might be done hiding my shedim side, I wasn’t done being hunted.

I picked my way over patches of ice that bloomed into carpets of tiny flowers with sharp crystalline petals, a lifetime of running over uneven terrain saving me a twisted ankle on the slick ground. Crunching a lopsided carnation—Mother Nature’s gas station flower—under my boot, I wondered whether Alastair’s head would make that same satisfying noise when I killed him for good.

Operative Fleischer, champion of justice, had vanished the second the bloodsucking parasite blackmailed me into leaving⁠—

I dropped my gaze from the mud-brown sky to the fortress looming ahead of us. The weathered gray stone walls were lined with crenellations and guard towers, while bushes with oversized thorns grew wild in the dry moat. Their barbs coiled like hungry serpents, waiting for unwary flesh to pierce.

Annoyingly, my eyes stung from the stench of pine cleaner that had followed us for the past half hour. The reek made as much sense as the floating reefs of bone-white coral resembling teeth we’d navigated in eerie silence.

Usually, trips to the Brink were anything but quick. Count on Alastair to have some dumb artifact that could whisk us from the rift through the Brink to the fortress like an overeager puppy with a full bladder bounding to its favorite tree.

Though even one second spent in his charming presence was an eternity too long. He’d forsaken any pretense of civility, exposing a man-shaped reservoir of spite and brutishness.

The handcuffs bit painfully into my wrists as he hauled me forward by the chain, his casual flick sending me lurching behind him. My stomach churned with revulsion at being reduced to a prisoner, a possession, while the weight of his control over me made me want to scream with rage, but I refused to give him the satisfaction.

Alastair didn’t know it, but the restraints were overkill, given that the very sentience he was frog-marching me toward had already stripped me of my Eishei Kodesh abilities and left my connection to Cherry Bomb on the fritz.

Yes, I’d forfeited my blue flame magic for an hour, but I’d expected the pay up to happen either when I first wagered it days ago or at some random innocuous time. Not that some asshole magic guardian would stalk me and find the exact worst moment to snatch my abilities away.

My captor pounded on the fortress’s metal-reinforced wooden gate with an expression of savage triumph, and that old adage about not counting chickens flitted through my head.

I still had a shot. One requiring extraordinary luck, insanely perfect timing, and possibly a minor miracle, but technically, still a shot.

But with my shedim side fading in and out, my Eishei Kodesh magic in absentia, and the nulling cuffs squashing the hope that I’d be able to do anything even if I got my powers back, I was swimming in a catastrophe cocktail. My brain had locked up completely, like a computer with too many fatal errors. No reboot and no strategic thinking.

Sensing my distress, the Brimstone Baroness tore through the staticky barrier separating us. Our link clicked into place like a dislocated joint popping back to where it belonged.

Cherry itched to tear that British bastard limb from limb for orchestrating horrors from his comfortable shadows. I forced the sudden toxic green of my eyes back to their regular light brown and ordered her to shove her hate down, because my jaw still throbbed from Alastair’s backhanded blow when I’d attempted to bond over deadbeat supernatural parents.

Who could have guessed that while Calista had hidden her dhampir son, she’d also protected him, visiting as often as she could to not only train him with valuable survival skills, but simply spend time with him.

Alastair had stoked his hatred for the parties he believed responsible for his mother’s death like precious glowing coals. To be fair, he had plenty of that emotion to go around, along with a list of every vampire who’d ever dissed or underestimated him.

“They’ll get theirs when I have the power of a Prime and they don’t,” he’d said darkly.

Alastair’s hand now flitted to a green camo canteen worn on a canvas shoulder strap, the uncharacteristic accessory first revealed when he lost his wool coat back in the bone reefs. BYOB? Supplies for a tailgate party? Picky about his food? In any case, he hadn’t touched it yet, so perchance it was a boutique hemoglobin to be savored in celebration.

So long as he didn’t try snacking on me.

With a shuddery creak, the gate opened into a courtyard. There was no one to greet us, which meant that either Daphne was out on sentience-related business or unavailable. Small things like being polite didn’t bother Alastair anymore, so he walked right in.

I barely had one last glimpse of the giant bone wall stretching out in the distance before the gate slammed shut with a thud that made me jump. How was Shiny Jimmy doing? If I got the chance to see him on this visit from hell, I’d have to tell⁠—

I swallowed. Ezra was a Prime. Even infected by whatever weird magic had spread from Rukhsana into him, he’d be healed by now.

“Move it.” Alastair’s broad British accent had a bladed edge. He pushed me past a clump of cacti and over a small arched bridge whose reflecting pool boasted lazily floating lotuses.

It was sunny in the courtyard, but I couldn’t even enjoy a moment of warmth because while the sky was blue, it throbbed with malevolent mud-brown threads that sent shivers down my spine.

The sound of snipping grew louder, rhythmic and hungry like the clicking of a predator’s teeth, its source revealed when we rounded a massive tangled rosebush.

Daphne, gatekeeper and arbiter of magic-seekers’ fates, tipped up the brim of her straw gardener’s hat with her gloved hand to coolly survey us. “How dumpster-chic,” she said in her Brooklyn drawl and cut away some dead branches.

I didn’t care about my disheveled, sweaty self. What did cleanliness matter when I planned to add bloodstains to the mix?

Alastair ran a hand over his once-beautifully tailored shirt that was now dirty and crumpled. A smear of grease marred his black stubbled jaw, but his undead fashionista self was visible in the quality of the torn cotton and the remaining misaligned pearl buttons.

He pushed me forward. “We’re here for the test.”

A muscle ticked in Daphne’s jaw, but she yanked off her gloves, dropped the pruning shears, and stood up. Her ivory V-neck sweater and tailored slacks were spotless. Now, that was a magic feat. “Are you now?”

“After he removes these nulling cuffs,” I said. There. Step one of a strategy.

Alastair hesitated.

The smile Daphne unfurled was venom wrapped in spun sugar. “I’ve never had someone bring a hostage cheerleader, but then again, there’s a first time for everything.” She shook her fists like pom-poms. “Do you require her to spell out your name letter by letter or will general encouragements suffice?”

The dhampir yanked the key out of his pocket.

My wrists burned even more as the metal fell away, though the numbness in my hands was a pleasant counterpart to that.

Better still, my Eishei Kodesh magic came flooding back.

A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth despite everything. My hour forfeit was up, and the gameboard had just shifted. I stepped through the doorway with renewed purpose.

“Shoes off,” our hostess commanded.

I toed out of my ankle boots and settled myself on a comfy sofa under a bright tapestry of a hunting scene, letting my magic settle itself. Books overflowed their shelves, a fire crackled cheerily, and lush plants and wildflowers gave the air an earthy, humid tinge.

Daphne switched her gardening clogs for marabou feather slippers with satin-covered kitten heels. The hostess with the mostess.

Alastair positioned himself next to a tall rubber plant, wrapping the scrap of grimy fabric that had once been his tie around his knuckles and then sliding it off again. As if trying to reclaim some dignity after being reduced to socked feet.

White filmy curtains billowed out the open glass door behind him.

I longed to probe the dhampir with my synesthete vision in case I could see his weaknesses or any previous injuries that would give me an advantage, but I didn’t dare.

Not because I didn’t have his consent, but because I got the sense that fairness was important to the magic guardian, and as I was the supplicant, I would do nothing to cause offense and risk my shot at passing the test—i.e. the aforementioned minor miracle.

I pushed away the memory of the wriggling maggot that had been the last supplicant’s name.

Daphne leaned against a long wooden table. When I’d been here last, it held a tea set, but it was currently covered with a soil-splattered plastic tarp, a preposterously sharp trowel that Sachie would demand buying info for, and seedling pots. “You can leave if you want, Aviva.”

I rubbed my fingers, waking the numbness into such a searing pins-and-needles sensation that my breath hitched. “I wish to try for the power word.”

Daphne blinked at me. “Really.”

“Yup,” I said.

“When you’re still recovering from your forfeited Eishei Kodesh magic.”

She knew that, huh?

“No time like the present.” I swept a lank strand of hair out of my eyes.

“You were forcibly brought here.” Daphne shook her head. “As outlined in Statute 7.B of the Threshold Protocols, ‘No supplicant may petition for a power word under duress or constraint, physical or magical. The seeking must stem from genuine desire, freely formed and freely acted upon. Violation renders the test void and the petitioner subject to immediate expulsion—or, in cases of willful deception, permanent dissolution.’”

Dissolution? I swallowed. How omnipotent was the sentience? Because those cuffs had been the least of my problems. If Alastair missed the check-in with his vampire minions, they’d execute Secretary Pederson and frame my mother for it, along with her ordering Ezra to murder the operative Roman Whittaker.

All lies, but the photo Alastair had of my infernal form would convince Dmitri Kozlov that Michael would do anything to protect her own half-shedim abomination. She’d end up in Sector A, the top-secret maximum-security jail where people who colluded with demons or rogue vamps were sent.

Ezra would be hunted down, the investigation spreading to Silas’s escape and potentially dragging Sachie, Darsh, and the entire Vancouver Maccabee chapter into that terrifying prison alongside the director.

Meantime, I’d be left breathing just long enough to watch it all unfold.

I weighed all that against what could be done to me now for lying about my situation. I had to come clean. “There’s no cell service in the Brink, but is there some way for Alastair to contact his people and give the order that Secretary Pederson is not to be touched? That my mother is safe? I’ll exercise my true free will if he does that.”

“After I have the Luce.” Alastair pronounced the word “lou-chay” like the Italian word for “light.”

I frowned. “Is that the power word?”

“It’s the name of the healing magic contained in it.” Daphne placed her palm flat against the nearest wall, and a low, hungry rumble echoed through the room. “When you arrived,” she said to Alastair, “you said ‘We’re here for the test.’ That makes both of you the petitioners and both of you subject to the Threshold Protocol.” She patted the scary wall like it was a favored pet. “But it’s up to you.”

He made the call, which amazingly connected, even putting it on speaker so we could ascertain for ourselves that he’d called off the hit.

One terrifying situation mitigated, but I still had to stop Alastair once and for all.

“I’m exercising my free will,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “I want to take this test.”

Daphne crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “You swore the last time you showed up that you didn’t want the power word.” The charge, delivered in her Beastie Boys accent, would have been amusing if it didn’t also come with a menacing glower that made both me and Cherry flinch.

“It’s a woman’s prerogative…” I smiled with false bravado.

My hostess toyed with the trowel. Why was I surrounded by people with violent urges?

My inner demoness admired how the sharp edge caught the light. Never mind.

“You can’t refuse her.” Alastair snapped a leaf off the rubber plant.

“Touch my plant again and I’ll dig a hole where your dick should be and grow seedlings there instead,” Daphne said conversationally.

The dhampir dropped the leaf and glared at me.

I sent up a silent plea for Daphne to not make this harder on me.

No one had successfully acquired the power word since the early twentieth century. Failure meant joining the vibrant bone wall community with no sense of myself, and no purpose but a cautionary tale.

But not to be given a shot at all to change this incredibly shitty day and take power back for myself? To rescue people important to me? I pumped a fist. “Goooo test!”

“We’re wasting time.” Alastair busted out his fangs. The manic hostile energy rolling off him didn’t so much deter his commanding air as twist it into something feral.

Daphne pushed up her sleeve. Runes carved into her flesh glowed copper against her tanned skin. “You began this petition under murky conditions, so I’ll let you know what my boss and I decide when we decide it. Now shut up.”

I studied my abductor through slitted lids.

Alastair was the right-hand man in the most powerful vampire Mafia in existence, and no one, not even its leader, Natán Cardoso, had figured out he was only a halfie. Any uptick in the Brit’s abilities, like siring an undead army, would convince everyone he was a Prime and confer scary levels of power upon him. He might even be able to steal the Kosher Nostra’s command away from Natán.

I clenched my fists. The upheaval and damage he’d cause wouldn’t just affect vampires.

Not only that, but should Alastair discover my sister orchestrated events leading to his mother’s murder (with the killing blow dealt by Ezra, who would be absolutely healthy enough to defend himself when Alastair found out), then he’d target my sister and draw out her death, which would enrage Delacroix. Supernatural war would break out.

I gritted my teeth against the tingly feeling presaging my toxic green eyes. Not yet, Baroness.

Should Alastair be killed before the ritual happened, his minions would continue this mad quest to sire children, endlessly killing infernals to fuel a broken ritual.

Let the magic sentience that protected the power word dismantle every single vampire supplicant. I didn’t give a shit. The thing is, Alastair murdered six half shedim to get the blood necessary for this.

It had taken years to find his perfect victims, including a thirteen-year-old boy, Aleksander, Secretary Pederson’s nephew. Sadly, the one thing Alastair’s undead followers had plenty of was time.

My gaze shot to the canteen, and a muscle ticked in my jaw. Fuck me.

How did Alastair fit six bodies’ worth of blood into that? Was it TARDIS brand or had he magically concentrated the fluid down? I better not be expected to drink it or even touch it.

But what if that was my role as speaker of the power word? I could tell myself that I was giving those people’s brutal murders purpose, but the idea of literally having their blood on my hands—or worse—made me gag.

You’ll do this because you have to, mi cielo. Ezra’s voice filled my head.

For a brief, wonderful second, I thought he was somehow psychically communicating with me, but the continued silence bounced off the walls, mocking me.

Daphne was still communing with the magic sentience, her lids closed and a shivery dark aura surrounding her like a force field, while Alastair remained fixated on her, awaiting the decision.

For the safety of half shedim, I had to murder all hope that this ritual worked.

Think it through, Fleischer. My understanding of the order of events was: get the power word, speak it during a dark magic ritual that Alastair performed in conjunction with the blood, and watch him reap the rewards.

That word was the delivery system of the healing magic, while the ritual defined the parameters of what specifically was to be healed.

Well, one did not simply bounce out of a dark magic blood ritual ready to rock and roll.

I blinked. Was that the solution? Strike once the ritual was performed, but while Alastair still adjusted to his new super-vamp abilities?

I suspected I had a very small window of opportunity. Possibly seconds.

I’d have to phrase his murder afterward in such a way that the logical inference was the magic power word didn’t work as advertised and killed him.

His followers bought their leader’s bullshit that this ritual would work on all vampires versus one lucky recipient. Because they were desperate to believe. It sucked for them that they couldn’t differentiate between faith born of desperation and utter self-delusion.

Regardless, that faith would not be extended to me. My claim had to be irrefutable, and for that, I had to be able to beat him.

Alastair did the ritual and died. Stick me in front of a top Yellow Flame lie detector or a vampire, and neither would claim I lied.

All I had to do was get an impossible power word.

Daphne leveled a long, dubious look from me to Alastair and opened her mouth.

I stood up abruptly, every muscle tensed like a cornered animal. “I’m here of my own free will,” I repeated, my voice steadier than the rest of me. “Let me do this. Please.”

The word hung between us—“please”—a desperate prayer more than a polite request. Cherry rumbled in agreement, her presence coiling through me like smoke. We were in this together, the Baroness and I, about to face a test no one had survived in a century.

Daphne studied me, her eyes ancient and knowing beneath that ridiculous gardener’s hat. She must have seen something in my face—determination, resignation, or perhaps the perfect blend of fear and fury—because she finally nodded.

“As you wish,” she said. The words fell like a death sentence.

The air around us charged with electricity. The fortress walls seemed to breathe inward, the space contracting as the test prepared to consume another supplicant. Alastair’s fanged smile gleamed in my peripheral vision, but I thanked Daphne.

This was it. My shot. My last extraordinary chance to fix this doomed trajectory.

Too bad I was all out of miracles

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