Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) (16 page)

"Don't say my name, okay?" She crosses her legs, too, wrapping herself up against me.

"Okay. Sure. I didn't mean—"

"Yeah, yeah, you didn't mean. I don't care what you meant. Just leave my name out of it." She picks at a loose thread sticking up from the couch, a surly expression pouting those raw lips. "I have to do anything you ask, remember? If you say the wrong thing, we're screwed. It's too dangerous. And before you ask: no, I can't break a demon's curse or get you your old life back. Not in my power. Sorry."

Well, that figures. But . . . Anything I ask?

How about
rip Joey DiLuca's throat out with your teeth, Jewel,
or
smash Gavain's mouth to pulp for touching you, Jewel,
or
Jewel, come
slide your sweet ass into my lap and kiss me until I can feel it in my bones?

Blood judders in my muscles, warm and seductive, and my mouth fills with guilty grime. I'll never say those things. They're cheap, disgusting, beneath her. But it doesn't stop me wanting.

She smirks. "You done thinking dirty thoughts?"

"Oh, yeah, go all squeaky on me. Because you weren't staring at me naked this morning, or jamming Gavain's head between your legs just now, or anything."

Her cheeks tighten, white. "Look, nothing happened, okay? It's not like that. He gave me some stupid drug—"

"Believe it or not, I'm not interested in your love life." Especially when it doesn't include me.

"Give me a break. I'm trying to tell you I didn't screw your boyfriend."

I glare, to cover my twitching nerves. "He's not my boyfriend, okay? He can do what he wants. I don't give a shit. Do you give a shit?"

Hell, if she'll believe that, she'll believe anything.

She just laughs at me. "Yeah, you're right. Why would I possibly care about you, Tam? You only own my soul. Why would I be thinking of you, or dreaming about you, or—" She tosses her chin fiercely, jagged hair tumbling over coloring cheeks. "You know what? Screw it. I don't want to talk about it. What did you come here for again?"

A hot, wet layer shudders beneath my skin, and I resist a tomcat grin, the one Rudy wears after a night on the town with the ladies. She's dreaming of me. I knew it. Lucky for her she can't smell while she's asleep. "Fine. Whatever you say. This lamp of yours. What did Gavain tell you?"

She glares back, like she wants to say more, but finally she sighs and folds her arms tighter. "He gave it to the purple lady, he said. Some demon broad called Delilah, at Joey DiLuca's house. Mean anything to you?"

My nerves crawl, demon fingers sliding through my flesh.

"Yeah. It means we're fucked." Bitterness curls in my stomach, threatening to rise. I jerk up from my chair, my knees protesting with a wet pop, and my fingers quiver, itching to squeeze.

Delilah, Kane's bitchfight-of-the-week. At the DiLuca house. Sorry, did I say house? I meant fucking fortress.

I've ripped off ATMs in broad daylight, cased a spriggan gang's troll-barred lair, lifted diamonds from a spell-crazy banshee's night table while she lay moaning in bed, and that place still scares me. It isn't just the security, though that's supposed to be formidable. It isn't even Joey, or Vincent, his psycho-vamp offsider. It's whatever other hell-ripped monsters might be shambling around in there.

Christ. I am so screwed. I can almost hear Kane laughing at me from here. Fury snarls in my blood, impotent like a shackled beast. I can't believe Gavain's done this to me. Whatever Delilah offered him better be good.

Sour spit washes my mouth, and I realize I'm disappointed in him. Where the hell did that come from?

I pace into the kitchen. Sun glares in my eyes, and my sinuses pop in the heat, trickling blood into the back of my throat. With shaking hands I find a glass and wrench the tap on, my sticky palm ripping on the cool steel knobs.

Soft footsteps thump up behind me, until she props her black-sheathed hip on the crowded sink's edge. Her arms are still folded, her pretty dark hair scrunched wild. "Will you tell me what this is about? Who the hell are all these people? What's it got to do with me?"

Reddish slime spurts from my palm over the tarnished tap. I have to wipe it off into the water so she won't see, and it makes me short. "Whaddaya mean, what it's about? Christ, darlin', where have you been?"

***

Chapter Sixteen

My temper flared like sunburn. God, I hated this ignorance, being the only one who didn't know what was going on. It reminded me of Luna, his tricksy lies, the way he delighted in horrid little surprises.

I struggled to keep my voice from rising. "Where have I been? Stuck in a lamp for fifty-seven years, okay? Thanks so much for asking."

He stared, and took a gulp of cloudy water. Blood drifted from his lip into the glass. "Shit. Okay. I'm sorry, I didn't know. That sucks." More blood oozed between his fingers, and he tried to wipe it away without me seeing.

I crossed my arms tighter and gazed at a point above his head. "Yeah, it sure did."

"So . . . how'd that happen?"

I remembered my last hour with Luna, on that starlit Mediterranean beach, just before he ordered me to get in the lamp and stay there. I'd seen it coming—we'd long since fallen out, that guiltless sorcerer and I—and tearfully I asked him why. I hadn't done anything wrong, hadn't disobeyed him or failed him or sold him out to his enemies. He just tossed that beautiful golden hair, flashed me that wicked smile and said
it'll give me something to regret.

Fifty-seven years later, he's still a goddamned liar, even if he is dead.

My teeth clenched, and with an effort I relaxed. "It doesn't matter, okay? The last asshole who claimed me thought it was funny to torment me."

"Know how you feel."

Was he actually trying to make me angry? "Oh, I doubt it. When's the last time anyone told you what to do and didn't get a punch in the face?"

He laughed. It was the first genuine laugh I'd seen, and those lamp-junkie hormones of mine did another besotted happy dance at the way his eyes sparkled. "Darlin', you have no idea. Okay? You so know nothing about me. You don't want my sympathy, fine. Just don't assume I'm the same as every other greedy idiot who chases your sweet ass."

I wanted so much to believe it that my eyes burned. I whirled away, putting space between us. "Oh, yeah? And just how are you different?"

His gaze slipped, and he gave a sullen shrug. "Forget it."

"No. Come on, if you're so virtuous. How the hell is what you're doing to me okay, Tam? Astonish me."

He gulped the last of his water and plonked the gritty glass back into the sink. "Hey, I told you I'd never ask you for anything, and I meant it."

"Is that it? You're just going to pretend you don't own me, and that makes it all right between us? Don't you understand how impossible that is for me?"

"Take it or leave it, okay? At least I'll never leave you stuck in your fucking lamp for a zillion years. Now you wanna talk about how to get the damn thing back, or what?"

My throat burned. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to fall at his feet and cry. "And just what do you care about that, all of a sudden? You don't want me, so why do you even give a shit?"

His eyes glinted darkly, and he opened his mouth to say something, but he stopped, and swallowed instead.

My stomach crinkled. Christ, I didn't want the answer to that question. I wanted to un-ask it, suck it back down my throat like it never happened.

And he didn't want to answer it. I could see that in his quivering jaw, the dark flush that crept into his cheeks, the nervous fidget possessing his fingers.

I swallowed, dry like leaves. "Forget it. You were telling me about this purple lady?"

His gaze flitted away again, and he licked his lips. Maybe gratitude. Maybe triumph. I didn't want to know.

He wiped a dark smear from his nose, and walked unsteadily back to his chair. Again, sat astride it with his arms crossed over the wooden back, giving me a really, really nice glimpse of his butt. Honestly. No one's jeans fit their butt that well. It didn't help at all that I'd already seen him naked, and I knew where those tight curves went.

I sighed, and followed. He avoided my gaze all the way back to the sofa, for which I was thankful. I didn't want to read what I'd see there. I plopped back into the dusty cushions and folded my arms. If he had another agenda, fine. I'd take his help to get my lamp back, and then he could go to hell for all I cared. Right?

He scraped loose hair from his cheek, self-conscious. "Okay. So you've got DiLuca versus Valenti, it's like a gang war over territory and markets and shit like that. But this is Kane's town . . . Kane's the demon lord, get it? So he takes sides with Valenti because they've got the upper hand. Delilah is supposed to be getting cozy with the DiLuca clan so she can challenge Kane in the demon court."

My stomach watered, sick. A demon master. Mistress. Whatever. You can bet I wouldn't be fetching french fries for her.

But the most dangerous thing about demons is that they don't die. They get me back in that lamp? I could be there forever.

Forever is a fucking long time.

"No way, Tam. We have to get it back. You have to help me. Please." I knew I was begging. I didn't care. I couldn't face it. Not again.

"Okay, calm down, sister." Tam chewed his lip, thoughtful. "We know where it is, right? At the DiLuca house? Why can't you just go get it?"

I snorted, trying to shrug off my unease, but it settled on my shoulders like a wet feather cape, heavy and stinking. "If I could just go get it, d'ya think I'd be sitting here talking to you?"

"But, you know, that weird turn-to-smoke thing. You can fly or something, right?" He fluttered his hand, an endearing lunatic glint in his eyes.

An infatuated giggle welled up. I swallowed it. "You don't get it. I can't fly. I can't smoke. I can't do any bloody thing, Tam, unless you ask me to."

"So . . . I'll ask you to. I mean, I know I promised I wouldn't. But just this one thing . . ."

Relief swelled my throat. Now I was getting somewhere. "Yes. Thank you. It's a miracle. Can we get on with it?"

He shrugged. "You ready?"

I sucked in a breath, and let it out, my veins thrumming in anticipation. "Yeah. Say it."

He rested his chin on crossed arms, and a crafty glint sparkled in his eyes.

Oh, crap. Too late, I wondered which side he was on in that demon bitch-spat.

He gave me a dirty, charming, utterly untrustworthy smile. "Jewel, go get your lamp . . . and bring it back to me."

I cursed, but before my words could make any sound, I dissolved.

***

A hot updraft sucked me out the window before I had time to collect myself. Ah, fresh air. The city spread before me in sun-warmed splendor, glass glinting and heat haze shimmering to the horizon. Warm air currents buffeted me on swirling eddies filled with pollen and dust.

Delight swept me upwards, soaring swiftly like an angel over suburbs and high-rise towers. My particles danced, magic sparkling through me in a golden cloud. Sensation without body, breath without air, sight without eyes. Glorious. And the delirious, pleasurable ether of compulsion. This is what I am, what I was made for.

I flung out my senses, searching, and soon the irresistible siren of my lamp sang deep inside me like sweet desire. I dove towards it, ecstatic. The broad shimmer of a lake, glaring white in the heat. Down, above strips of browned-off grass and thin trees to a big white house surrounded by high walls and a row of spindly greenery. I squeezed thin, stretched, slid, mote by mote through a tiny crack between wood and pane glass, the surfaces rubbing roughly over me. And then I thickened, slowing to a wispy hover.

A dim curtain-shrouded room, tart with the graveyard smells of ash and earth. I floated near the ceiling, painted iron sliding over me. Below me, rumpled scarlet sheets, a pile of pillows. The long shape of a sleeping body, a woman naked in the heat, sweat beading on her brown skin. And there was my precious lamp, shiny and safe, the handle wrapped in the slender dark fingers of the sleeper, long curls of her murky hair drooping over her wrist.

Reckless joy rushed through me like a summer night's breeze, and I swooped.

Clunk!

As if I'd dived headfirst into invisible glass. Dizziness swirled me, sucking me around and inwards like a tornado, and I nearly coalesced in shock.

The sleeping woman stretched onto her back, her big breasts flattening, and deep, hellish laughter corrugated the air.

Oh, crap. I struggled to rise, particles flying wildly out of my control.

Delilah's fingers curled tighter around my lamp, and horny black claws sprang from their tips. She rubbed the brass against her cheek with a razor-toothed smile, her violet hair spilling over the spout. Her eyes flashed green, and her voice growled, like a beast's. "Come a-stealing, bauble girl?"