Blood of the Demon (The Silver Legacy Book 3) (31 page)

Iris looked up at Denny. “We have to get her to a hospital. I’ve done all I can do for her ...and you...well, love, you look a mess. We have to hurry.”

“My car is shot to––” The world began getting smaller and Denny could feel herself letting go.

Iris shook her head. “Val called a friend for a helicopter. Should be here any moment. DH, you need to just sit down. You don’t look so hot.”

Denny nodded, but remained by Peyton’s side as the edges of her consciousness became fuzzier and darker. “I need to...thank Enobaria.” Putting her weapons away, she stumbled over to the two women. Her legs felt like she was walking on someone else’s.

“Enobaria. Valeria.” Denny nodded to each one. “You arrived...” Denny sat down with a thud. “Jesus.”

“You are beyond weary, Hunter, and you’ve lost more blood than you realize. I fear––”

Those were the last words Denny heard before passing out.

***

D
enny woke to find herself on the very couch Peyton had been in not twenty-four hours earlier. As her eyes fluttered open, she felt movement by her side.

When she turned her head, she was surprised to find Annalee holding her hand. Her face, while bruised, was on the fast healing track of dark yellows and browns. Her right arm was in the kind of sling that stabilizes the shoulder.

“Don’t think you’re checking out that easily, Skippy. You’ve got friends in high priestess places.”

Denny wanted to grin her my face felt frozen from the cheeks down. Her nose hurt and her body ached, but she was alive. “Peyton?”

“Hanging on by a demon thread. She’s in ICU, but I gotta hand it to the girl, she’s a fighter. So are you. That one is gonna go down in the Book as one of the all-time weirdest demon hunter moments, to be sure. How you feeling?”

Denny closed her eyes. She ached in places she didn’t know existed. Everything was throbbing, pounding, or otherwise angry.  “Peyton...is she...critical?”

“I won’t lie. Yeah. The gashes on her back were filled with some sort of toxin from the claws. Valeria had a tough time explaining that one to the docs, so I think she used a little magic to get him to let it go. It’s the internal injuries. They stomped her pretty bad. Broken arm. Four broken ribs. Cracked collarbone, fractured cheekbone, and of course, all those tiny scalpel-like knives from Fouet. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Jesus.” Denny could barely remember getting to her.

“You saved her life, Silver.”

“Pretty sure it took a village.”

“Well, the village thanks you. So do I.”

Denny winced. “How bad is my face? It feels like someone smashed it with a skillet.”

“You were a bloody mess when you got here. Broken nose, contusions on your cheeks. And...um...did you even
know
you were shot?”

Denny nodded. “Early on, before all the shit went down. I think the Hanta blocked it out. I barely remember it.” Denny reached up to touch her nose, but thought better of it. Even that small movement hurt.

“Well, your witch is an amazing healer. You may have saved Farquar from being stomped to death, but Iris is the one who kept her alive. Amazing hands, that little woman.”

“Where is she?”

“Getting you breakfast. It’s two days after yesterday for you. You’ve been out a bit. I recommend eating everything but––”

“The bread.” Denny started to laugh, but her ribs hurt too much.

Annalee smiled. “Yeah. Fucked me right up when she gave it to me. Look, Silver. I’m not the mushy-gushy type, so I’m gonna deny saying this. You’re one helluva hunter, but you’re mostly
buena gente
. Good people. I understand what Ames sees in you. Take your witch, go home, and make a new normal for yourself. Strike a balance. Find love. Walk along the beach. Being a hunter isn’t the sum of your parts...it is only one facet of who you are. Remember that.”

“If she doesn’t, she’ll be force-fed my bread.” Iris walked into the room carrying a loaded breakfast tray with eggs, bacon, hash browns, assorted donuts, oatmeal, and fruit.

“And on that note, I’m gonna go to the hospital to relieve Valeria.” Annalee rose. “We’ve got everything under control, here, Silver. Just rest. You took quite a beating.”

“We guarding Peyton?”

“Hell yeah, we are. A lot of baddies are still on the loose. When you’re better, we’ll clean up so she can rest.” Annalee stepped away from the bed. “You’re many things, Silver. Don’t let the darkness overtake your light.”

As Annalee walked by Iris, Denny said, “Oh, and Annalee? I never heard any of it.”

She smiled. “Good, ’cause I never said it.”

Iris shook her head. “You’re both weird.” Setting the tray gently on Denny’s lap, she tenderly laid her palm on Denny’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a Mac truck hit me, ran over me, and then backed up to do it again. How is she, really? Don’t sugar coat it for me, Iris. Is Peyton gonna make it?”

“She’s a fighter, DH. She won’t go gently into that good night.”

“I need to see her.”

“And you will, but not right now.” She nudged a bowl of oatmeal toward Denny. “Here’s the status of
your
damage. We sewed up your chin, ear, and forearm. The chin will have a three-inch scar that will look sexy as hell. You can make up all sorts of stories for the chicks. What we didn’t sew we super-glued together. You were shot, have a concussion, multiple contusions and abrasions, a broken nose we set while you were out. We also plucked what looked like glass from your palm. You fainted because of blood loss, but there are no broken bones.”

Denny ate a couple of bites of oatmeal, all the while wondering if Iris had drugged it. “Okay. Status update on all the players of this messed-up chess game.”

Iris carefully sat on the bed. “Here’s how it all went down. You eat, I talk. After you left for the rift, Peyton came to downstairs, but it wasn’t her at all. Her Hanta was completely at the helm. We tried to reason with it, but I think he wanted to kill us. There was still enough of Peyton in there that she locked us in the utility room instead and then shoved a couch in front of the door. It took us far too long to get out. Our magic could unlock the door, but we couldn’t move the couch.”

“How’d you get out?”

“We did a wake-up spell for Annalee, but she was so drugged, it took her forever to realize we needed her. That’s why we were so slow in getting to the game.”

Denny finished the oatmeal and started in on the eggs. “You gave her your special bread.”

“I did. Once she was able to get two of the security dudes to move the couch, Valeria and I had already figured out what we were gonna do.”

“Why Enobaria, though? You didn’t yet know that Hélène and Devereaux were behind all of it, and Enobaria lets no one in or out of the swamp.”

“
I
hadn’t figured it out, no, but V had. She opened this small, circular mirror that shimmered like a pond. She called it an energy finder. It locates areas of high magical energy. She said the ancients used it to locate other witches back in the day.”

“An ancient GPS system.”

She smiled and nodded, handing Denny orange juice. “Exactly. She saw Hélène at the park, and that was when we knew. Hélène didn’t have the power to open or close the rift so what was she doing there? V started to put all of the pieces together and knew that you were walking into a Vodouisant nightmare.”

“What was Hélène getting out of this deal?”

“She’s a Vodouisant, DH. A Vodouisant who was about to have a legacy demon as an ally. With a legacy demon protecting her, she could finally leave the bayou. She could return to a city that had forced her to the swamp. She could rule the roost, leaving the bayou to Enobaria, a woman she loathed: the real Mambo. The real deal.”

“She expected Enobaria to kill me, didn’t she?”

“Oh hell yes. But you know what? Enobaria is hip to Hélène’s ways. She wasn’t about to just cut your throat and toss you in the swamp. She wanted to know what Hélène was up to. The mark on your face didn’t fool Enobaria.”

“Which is why she was able to drug me.”

“Yep. As a Mambo, she didn’t just drug you, she watched your vision along with you. She knew exactly what was going on. Enobaria came to town shortly after you left in order to deal with Hélène. She knew she’d been played, and boy, was she pissed.

“You can imagine my surprise at seeing her at the park.”

“Taking the Swamp Queen’s spells is like stealing her soul. She was none too happy that Hélène had her boys follow Peyton to the swamp. She definitely had an axe to grind. We just handed it to her.”

“How?”

Iris smiled softly. “Magic.”

“So Hélène sent her son and four others to get the source opening spell so they had a place to store Peyton’s demon.”

“Yes, until they could locate and kill Chick. With both legacies dead, Wynn was going to offer up his services to the Hanta for all the free demon nibblets he could eat.”

Denny remembered what Lauren had said about his family being from the early seventeenth century. They were called the
voleurs demon
or demon stealers.

She smiled. “Wynn saw this as his chance to get that which he’d always longed to have: a true legacy demon.”

Denny finished the eggs and started in on the bacon. “He wanted to play in the big leagues.  I always knew there was something wrong with him but I never imagined he’d go to such lengths to get a higher level demon.”

“Yes, he did, and when Peyton confided her struggles to Devereaux over crawdads one night, he saw his chance to steal the Hanta, and would have if you hadn’t been such a dog on a bone. He was the one who suggested using Enobaria. He was the one who set this whole ugly thing in motion. Enobaria was not pleased to have been played by Hélène. Their bad blood goes way back. I gotta tell you, if Hélène hadn’t already been dead when we got there, Enobaria would have killed her. You don’t play a Vodouisant Swamp Queen who has only half a bag of marbles and expect to walk away unharmed.” She nodded at the juice. “Finish that.”

Denny gulped the rest down and closed her eyes. She couldn’t have gotten out of that bed if a dog sled team had pulled her. “What happened with Hélène’s son? He saved my life.”

“He took off once he’d killed whatever the hell that thing was that Devereaux had turned into. What
was
that?”

Opening her eyes, Denny told her what had happened. “They’d moved the rift, making us think it had closed. When Peyton came to, she was all Hanta. She tried killing me in the park. Would have succeeded, too, so I ran away. She came after me.”

“Because Peyton was gone.”

Denny nodded. “But you see...I
knew
she wasn’t. She was still in there. She was just beneath the surface, but she was there.”

“How could you tell?”

Denny grinned and regretted it. “She called me Rookie. The demon called me Silver, like all demons do, but she didn’t.”

“Brilliant.”

“When I returned, Wynn had gone into the rift. Peyton ran in after him, taking Saugen with her. I’m guessing she reclaimed her Hanta inside the rift, and returned to help me out. The rest, I imagine you saw.” Denny finished the bacon and bit into a chocolate glazed donut.

We also discovered that it was Devereaux who killed Louis. He wanted you to believe it was Enobaria or Hélène. He knew it would make you off balanced enough to kill one or both.”

“Yes. He was hoping I would try to kill Hélène and die in the process. That would keep a major player off the board. It was a risky move, but he knew I was new at this and I would have been at a disadvantage of fighting in the swamp. It was a risk he was willing to take.”

Iris removed the tray, fruit still untouched. “There was a lot of shit going down between the three of them, and I don’t mind admitting that I can’t wait to finish this and go home. All this Voodoo crapola is too much for this little witch.”

“No shit.”

Iris reached for Denny’s hand. “You scared the hell out of me, DH. I’ve grown rather fond of you, and this world is a better place with you in it.”

Denny gently squeezed her hand. “Back atcha. I’m not going anywhere soon.”

“Good.” Iris rose. “V has sent for more cell phones. I imagine your people are worried. I’ll bring yours up when it gets here.”

“Iris? Thank you for everything.”

“Are you kidding me? If being your witch is always going to be this exciting, I should be thanking you. Now, get some rest. I’m going to come back when you’re asleep and see if I can’t assist your Hanta in the healing process.”

“I can’t go to sleep. I need to go see Peyton.”

“You can go when you wake up.”

“Wake up? I just woke up. I’m not,” the room started to sway. “God damn you, witch.”

Iris chuckled. “I knew you’d never eat bread. But a chocolate glazed donut? Sweet dreams, DH.”

The last thing Denny heard was Iris laughing all the way down the stairs.

***

T
he next afternoon, standing at the foot of Peyton’s bed, Denny shuddered. Even though Valeria and Iris had warned her, she wasn’t remotely ready to see how battered and swollen Peyton’s face was. The left side of her face was purple and disfigured with several scratches and one long gash mark. She could have been anybody.

“Jesus H. on a cracker,” Denny muttered. “Oh Peyton.”

“We’ll leave you alone,” Valeria said.

Peyton had been moved from ICU to the Critical Care Unit, but she was far from out of danger, and Denny knew it was only the presence of the Hanta that kept her alive.

The irony didn’t escape her.

Taking Peyton’s torn and bruised hand, Denny gingerly sat on the edge of the bed.

Peyton did not stir.

“You saved my life, Peyton, even when yours was at risk. I can’t thank you enough for that. Hell, I can’t thank you for all the things you’ve taught me even when you weren’t aware of it. That being said...” Denny leaned over to Peyton’s ear. “Don’t you fucking dare check out on me now, you deep fried Southern pussy. You are not alone anymore. You have me, Valeria, Annalee, and Iris. You owe it to yourself to stay alive, to find balance. You owe it to us. So you hang in there, do you hear me?” Denny stood up and took Peyton’s head in her hands, closing her eyes.