Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1) (9 page)

Crouching above me, the demon peered down at me over the wreckage he had caused and smirked. “Look me in the eyes, Jame Asher,” his voice slithered like a snake, “so you can know the face of the Infernarus that ended you.”

Still lying on my back, I drew my Glock and fired at his head. The gun bucked in my hands.

Red welts appeared in his cheek, and instantly healed over.

The demon leaned out, his jaw opening wider and wider as he gripped the edge of the crumbling slab for support—

Knowing I was about to get torched, I lowered my arms a notch and fired at the slab under his palms. Already brittle from the heat, it blew out from underneath him, and he lost his balance and pitched forward. He somersaulted and landed on his feet.

But I was already sprinting toward the garage, toward my Hummer. I slammed into the passenger side of the vehicle, scrambled over the hood, and tumbled into the driver’s seat. As I cranked the ignition with feverish adrenaline, I jabbed my finger at the garage door opener. The demon prowled after me.

The garage door retracted in the rearview, and beyond it I glimpsed a sliver of freedom.

I jammed the gearshift into reverse and slid my foot to the gas.

But hesitated.

Lana.

Helpless, abandoned, trapped in a pile of rubble that would become her grave.

This demon didn’t give a shit about her, it only cared about killing me.

Her death . . . it seemed like such a waste.

But she’s a demon. All demons must die . . .

The fire breather burst into the garage, galloping toward my car.

Ah, fuck it.

I was going to die today anyway. Might as well die doing something selfless.

I shoved it into drive instead and floored it, and the Hummer barreled toward the interior wall. The wrong direction if I wanted to escape. The right direction if I wanted to save Lana.

“The fuck you doing, Asher?” I muttered, gripping the wheel as the wall rushed up.
This chick’s going to be the death of you.

Sidestepping the vehicle, the demon braced itself and unleashed a river of fire. Gritting my teeth, I steered through the flames and rammed the partition that separated my garage from my basement. Made of wood and drywall, it splintered over the hood.

Engine roaring, the Hummer burst into my bedroom in the bunker. Then, lurching over rubble, it slammed into the next wall. The engine lugged.

“C’mon, c’monnn . . .”

At last, the vehicle exploded into the open area, now a raging inferno, and bounced over crushed furniture. Like a battering ram, the front bumper bashed into the concrete slab that had pinned Lana in. The Hummer managed to crack a corner of it. I reversed and hit the slab again, finally breaking loose a chunk wide enough to crawl through.

I leapt from the car—into an oven—and scrambled through the hole I’d made, ignoring how the burning concrete scorched my hands. Every breath felt like inhaling pure lava. A minute in these fumes would kill me.

Behind the mangled bars lay Lana, unconscious.

But not crushed, thankfully.

I found a gap where the bars had bent and, scooting her sideways, managed to extract her slender body. Then she was free. Heaving her onto my shoulders, I staggered back to the truck and dumped her into the passenger seat.

Behind us, the fire-breathing demon clawed its way through the rubble, blocking the car’s only way out. But my four-wheeled baby was
born
for off-roading.

The slab that had fallen on Lana’s cell made a convenient ramp up to the ground floor. Stomping on the gas, I felt the tires grip the edge and haul the vehicle upward. With a sickening lurch, the Hummer climbed out of the basement and barreled through the burning house, crashing through the blazing walls like they were tissue paper before it burst into the clear night.

The last thing I saw in the rearview mirror, before I skidded onto the street, was the demon stepping onto the front porch, straightening his immaculate suit despite the house burning to the ground behind him.

Lana coughed and stirred next to me, still unconscious.

First order of business: get her into the back, where she couldn’t tear my throat out.

Second order: figure out what the hell I was going to do now that I’d lost everything—my shelter, my machine shop, all my weapons . . . and my best friend.

Chapter 8

Lana

My knees were
pulled up to my chest, my arms wrapped tightly around them.

Azazel.

I stifled a shiver. I had met the man several times, and I love all my people, I do, but Azazel’s ways were unsettling—and he terrified me.

He’d come for Asher like he had so many Infernari during the war.

Had Azazel known I was in that house? Had the primus dominus? After all my sacrifices, it felt like a betrayal.

I still felt the scratch of soot deep in my lungs, the eye-watering urge to cough, the whistle in my throat that stung every time I tried to breathe, forcing me to take tiny sips, right at the edge of breathlessness.

But there was another ache in my body, this one deep down, paralyzing . . . humiliating.

I wished I had died.

I wished the hunter had left me to burn.

I gently tapped my head against the vehicle’s metal wall, sinking into despair.

Jame Asher had saved my life.

Not just spared my life this time, but actually
saved
it. To Infernari, those details mattered a great deal.

Azazel would have killed me, but Asher had risked his life to rescue me. A human had saved me from an Infernarus.

No, no, no.

I closed my eyes and swallowed.

It couldn’t have been just any human either.

It was the sworn enemy of my race.

I should have killed him when I had the chance.

The whole situation left me hollow. My body shook listlessly with the car as it drove into the night. I laid my cheek on my knees, my heart and soul hurting for what I would now have to do.

I don’t know how long we drove for. It was probably hours, but crammed in that cage, with the smell of sickness and blood and death, it felt like a miserable eternity.

I felt ill. Not just carsick, but a bone-deep chill that was spreading. I’d stopped shivering a long time ago. Whatever this was, it felt ominous.

Wounds weren’t the only thing that could kill Infernari. We could die from a broken heart. It happened to widowed mates all the time. Outside of that, it was less common.

But lifebreathers—healers—were prone to this sort of death as well.

I closed my eyes and centered myself. And then I tapped into my major affinity.

There was an entire world inside of me. A web of lives that stretched on and on, each interconnected with each other. Azazel was one of them, as was Fidel, as was the primus dominus.

This was the great secret that all healers held within them—we were physically bound to each and every Infernarus. This was why I couldn’t kill easily, why I could heal at a distance, why I had a reputation amongst my people for being too forgiving.

Me and every other Infernarus were all connected. That knowledge, it made the divisions we created amongst one another meaningless. Because we weren’t different, we were all the same blood.

They were why I was fighting.

And now I would be forced to betray them, because the human had saved my life.

I let the connection close, not wanting them to sense my sadness through it. My brethren didn’t know yet.

In fact . . . Asher didn’t know yet, either.

I opened my eyes, sensing the tiniest flutter of hope.

He must never know.

If he didn’t know, then nothing had to change. I could still be a nasty thorn in his side, I could still fight him every step of the way, I could still force him to answer for his crimes. I could try, at least.

My body, which had begun to wither away and die, sensed I still had a purpose and began to fill with life again. I started to breathe again.

And since I wasn’t dying—yet—I still had to tend to my physical needs.

I healed the worst of my wounds, then, ignoring my nausea, I sat up and slid open the metal slot. “I’m hungry. And I need to use a bathroom.”

Asher didn’t answer.

“Did you hear me, Asher?”

Again he didn’t answer, but not too long after we pulled off the road.

I would have to be very careful from now on to disguise my intentions, to be hateful and scathing toward him, when every fiber of my being wanted just the opposite.

Because from this day forward, the most ancient and sacred of Infernari oaths dictated my behavior. When he risked his life to save mine, he had created a debt that all Infernari must honor, a debt that I was required to repay.

From this day forward, no matter how much it plagued me, I was sworn to protect him.

Chapter 9

Asher

A potty break.

The demon needed a goddamn potty break. As if this whole situation wasn’t absurd enough.

I exited Interstate 81 and pulled into the nearest gas station, but didn’t let her out right away. Instead I sat there, clutching the steering wheel and breathing hard through my nose in an attempt to calm down, my brain and body still feverish from what had just happened.

Brad. Dead.

“Damn you, Brad,” I muttered. “Always got to be the fucking hero.”

I’d told him to stay put, told him to guard Lana. But no. First chance he got, he charged out like a cowboy, guns blazing.

Even if he had somehow stumbled clear of the fire, the demon would have tracked him down and roasted him.

Harbingers of death, demons were.

They brought catastrophe and misfortune to all whom you loved, descended on them like a sickness, like a plague.

You idiot, Brad.

I gritted my teeth, preferring anger to the much worse pain of grief.

This was the second time he’d risked his life to save mine, and the second time he’d shackled me with a burden instead.

The first time, he’d burdened me with the deaths of my wife and daughter, when the humane thing to do would have been to let me perish at their sides. Now, he’d burdened me with his own death.

The three people I loved most in this world . . . all dead.

All dead because of me.

My nostrils flared, and a fresh tear welled in my eye, which I smeared away with the base of my palm.

Didn’t want the demon to see this. Better if she viewed me as a stone-cold killer, not a broken man barely keeping it together.

But it didn’t matter.

Nikki and Joy . . . Brad . . . none of that mattered anymore.

I had sworn to exterminate these vile creatures or die trying, and it was starting to look like I would die trying.

Gladly.

I would
gladly
die and take my place beside my family in the dirt.

Only a matter of time, now. Hell, I probably wouldn’t live through the day. Lately, I’d majorly sucked at killing demons. Zero for two with the last two demons I’d encountered, zero for three if you counted Lana, who’d outfoxed me with her little Bambi eyes when I should have burnt her to ash ages ago.

Losing my touch. Getting soft.

Yeah, I was a dead man for sure.

That thought took the edge off the pain.

Brad, ol’ buddy, I’ll be seeing you real soon . . .

For the last hour, I’d been driving aimlessly southwest, heading vaguely in the direction of Mexico or Louisiana, didn’t much care anymore. But I had no other place to go. Didn’t have a plan, didn’t have weapons, didn’t have jack.

No, that wasn’t true.

I still had Lana, the daughter of Primus Dominus—lord of all demons.

She could turn out to be more valuable than all my weapons and all my gadgets combined.

And I still had a job to do. Destroy demons, destroy their portals, eradicate them from Earth.

Louisiana was a crapshoot; I had no idea if there was a portal there.

But Central America, I would bet money on. There was definitely a portal there. A
big
one.

And right about now I felt like shoving a big fat dick up it and fucking demonville raw.

Okay, new plan. Get my ass to Mexico and find that portal.

I would need Lana to locate it precisely. At the very least, I could use her as collateral when the next demon came after me.

More excuses not to kill her. It was becoming a habit.

I let out a weary sigh and circled around back to let her out, vowing to kill her the moment she stopped being useful.

Lana

When the doors
to my cage opened, and I caught sight of Asher, my breath caught.

He looked like all that was holding him together was pounds and pounds of muscle and raw determination. I marveled again at how handsome he was—his strong jaw, his gleaming eyes, the wicked curve of his lips. Even when he was frowning, as he was now, my gaze didn’t want to leave him.

His frown deepened when he caught me staring.

“Out,” he barked, like I was disobeying him by lingering in this dreadful prison.

I slunk out of the vehicle, nervous about pretending I wanted him dead. Infernari didn’t pretend well. As I passed Asher, I caught a whiff of his scent. He smelled like smoke and ash.

Above us, the streetlamps flickered in the night, and I could hear them buzzing with the effort of staying on.

Tentatively, I looked around us, poorly disguising my curiosity. We had pulled into a lone gas station, which sat on an otherwise empty road. Flat fields spread out from us in all directions, as far as the eye could see. Rows and rows of tall stalks swished gently in the moonlight.

Could I still run?

Would that violate my oath?

If I ran, Asher wouldn’t have a hope of tracking me through that—

He grabbed my wrist roughly. “Lana, the shitter’s this way.”

“Shitter?” I asked.

He sighed. “Bathroom.”

I raised my eyebrows. “
Oh
.”

We headed toward the building, Asher’s grip on me ironclad. Through the convenience store’s bright windows, I made out an overweight man with a stained T-shirt standing behind the counter. So far as I could see, we were the only customers at this hour.

Instead of entering the store, we walked around back, where two weary-looking his and her restrooms sat.

I flared my nostrils before we even entered. It smelled about as foul as some of the war zones I’d been in.

I hesitated.

“This is all you’re going to get for the next several hours, so you better make use of it, demon.”

I sighed. Back to demon.

“I might as well go out in the bushes,” I muttered. “It would lessen my chances of death by asphyxiation.”

“Stop stalling,” Asher said. “You have sixty seconds.”

I glared at him. He knew full well that it was hard for Infernari to judge the passage of time. Yanking open the door, I stepped into the bathroom, wincing at the smell of the place.

I could still hear Asher outside, his boots crunching against the gravel. And then I heard it.

Intervention.

Another car rumbled as it pulled into the gas station.

If I ever hoped to escape Asher’s clutches, now would be the time.

I might be sworn to protect him, but that didn’t mean I had to stay and babysit him, did it? And should some other Infernari come along later and slaughter him, well, that wasn’t my problem . . . could I really be held accountable for violating my oath?

Infernari honor codes were fuzzy on this point.

I still had a tiny bit of magic coursing through my veins from Brad’s blood, which I’d been saving. Just enough to change my appearance, my outfit shrinking with me.

I closed my eyes and shrank smaller and smaller, until I was half my normal size and my skin was many shades darker. A toddler, as the natives called their young. One that looked nothing like Asher.

Asher began to bang on the door. “Lana, time’s up.”

I chose then to open the door.

He didn’t see me at first; he was looking for a woman, not a child.

When he did eventually see me, his face hardened. “Lana—” He grabbed my wrist roughly.

I started screaming for all I was worth. “I want my
dad
!” I sobbed through my screams.

Asher crouched in front of me. “Lana, fucking
listen
to me. You stop this right now—”

I stopped wailing long enough to say, “I’m not getting back in that cage of yours.” My words sounded ridiculous through the child’s vocal cords.

Then I began screaming again.

His lips thinned. He spoke quickly, his voice a harsh whisper. “I won’t put you back in the cage if you behave—”

“There a problem here?” A deep voice said from behind Asher. A man stepped up to us. He looked like what the natives called a cowboy. He had friendly eyes, but right now they were boring holes into Asher.

Asher gave me a hard look, his upper lip twitching in anger. “My daughter’s just throwing a tantrum. Ignore her.” He didn’t bother turning to face the man.

“She don’t look like your daughter,” he said, spitting to the side, keeping his eyes trained on the hunter.

“Stepdaughter. You got a problem?” Asher said. And now he did partially turn, loose rocks skittering beneath his boots.

“Where’s her mother?”

“In the bathroom, asshole. Is this an interrogation?” Asher stood. “I’m so sick of you racist fucks thinking I’m some sort of pervert when I’m trying to take care of my own daughter.”

The man puffed his chest out, taking a step closer. “Now who you calling a racist?”

“Do you see anyone else out here?” Asher asked, opening his arms and making a point of looking around.

The man focused his attention on me. “Is this your stepdaddy?” he asked me.

I hesitated, weighing my options.

“You can tell me the truth,” he encouraged.

Asher stared down at me, his face unreadable. I was being offered two ways out. I could leave Asher’s side and make my way back on my own. Or I could stay with him and try to bring him back with me to Abyssos for justice, Infernari-style, which would consist of him being tortured to within a hair’s breadth of death.

But not death.

If I couldn’t kill him, then my duty was to bring him back to Primus Dominus alive. If I ran, I might avoid having to betray my people by saving him
from
them.

But abandoning him was as good as a death sentence. Azazel or another Infernarus would corner him and kill him.

No Infernarus would ever be that cavalier about repaying a life debt, and I was disgusted with myself for even considering it. I had spent too much time on Earth; their treacherous ways were rubbing off on me.

I had to stay and protect him.

That was the only thing my conscience would allow.

While I was repaying my debt, I would do everything in my power to stop Asher from killing Infernari and destroying our portals. I was
not
going to let my people die for this.

Asher edged behind the cowboy and, imperceptibly, his hand crept toward his holster. The threat in his eyes was perfectly clear: if I accepted this man’s help, Asher would kill him on the spot.

The man was still waiting for me to speak.

Finally, I nodded.

It was barely perceptible, but I saw Asher exhale. His hand moved away from his hip.

The man stared at me for a little longer. “You sure about that?”

In response, I walked into Asher’s arms, wrapping my little ones the best I could around his broad torso. The infamous hunter’s arms came around me, pulling me into him. I would’ve assumed Asher would be awkward when it came to giving a small child affection, but there wasn’t any hesitation on his part. He was a natural at it.

He stood, picking me up with him.

Wrapped up in the arms of an Infernari killer.

My decision suddenly seem like a poor one. I pressed my forehead into Asher’s collarbone, wondering if I made the wrong choice.

I’d find out soon enough.

The man reluctantly left us, his shoes crunching against the gravel as he walked away.

As soon as he was far enough away, Asher dropped me.

A human child would’ve tumbled into the ground, hurting themselves along the way. I landed in a crouch.

The ass.

Asher’s upper lip curled at the sight. “Don’t pull shit like that again on me,” he threatened.

“You need to be nice to me,” I said. “I can still scream.”

He folded his arms and looked down his nose at me. “You’ll get whatever I give you.”

I mirrored his stance, folding my arms. I knew full well how absurd I must look. “Then this is what it will be like at every—single—stop.”

We stared each other down, Asher working his jaw as though he tasted something bad in his mouth.

My stomach chose that moment, of all times, to growl, somewhat diminishing the ferocity of my threat.

Food, right.

That was the whole point of this stop. I was
starving
. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten. Now fixating on my hunger, I gazed longingly past him at the convenience store, then looked to him for permission.

His eyes took on a calculating glint.

“How would you like one of those?” He pointed to a large picture mounted in the windows that showed some kind of charred meat, glistening with oil, nestled inside a puffy, flaky bun, covered with red, yellow, and green sauces—a
hotdog
, if my memory served me correctly.

My stomach rumbled again, and I nodded, trying not to look too excited.

Humans
did
have a way with food.

“Yeah? You want one? Just makes your mouth water looking at it, doesn’t it?”

“Not if you’re going to dangle it in front of me like that,” I snapped.

“Tell you what, I’ll buy you one of those, and whatever else you want in that store . . .
if
you agree to cooperate from now on.”

My eyes narrowed. He was tricking me, of course.

Never make deals with humans.

“That means no more throwing tantrums,” he began listing off on his fingers, “no more changing into little girls, no more trying to kill me, and no more trying to escape, you understand?”

“Why in the world would I agree to that? Those are all my favorite things.”

“There’s another portal in Central America. That’s where I’m going. You need to get there, too, because you need to go home. We’ll get there faster if we cooperate, and . . .” his throat worked through a swallow, “. . . I’ll let you sit up front.”

Up front? With
him?

The thought was both exciting and terrifying.

I had no knowledge of this portal he spoke of—the one I knew of was across the sea—and I knew the hunter would get to the portal whether I cooperated or not. The question was whether I could slow him down.

“Swear to me you won’t destroy it,” I demanded, chiding myself a moment later. A human’s word meant nothing.

“Or,” he said, pointing over my shoulder, “I could dump your ashes in that field.”

“So all this really is, is a death threat disguised as some kind of a good deal, which it is not.”

His eyebrows pinched together. “You’ve been here too long.”

But I had formed my own plan. “I accept. You have my word I won’t kill you or try to escape . . . or
misbehave
,” I added with a curled lip, “provided you take me to the portal.”

Since my debt already forbid me from killing or abandoning him, I wasn’t giving anything up. We’d go to the gateway together, and rather than letting Asher destroy the portal, I would simply force him to cross over with me. I almost smiled at the thought of out-tricking the trickster. Once we were back in Abyssos, I’d strike a deal with the primus dominus that would allow him to live . . . albeit in the Dungeons of Furor.