Demon Squad 6 The Best of Enemies (18 page)

“You…seduced her?” I said, glancing back to Veronica.

Once more she smiled, brilliant teeth gleaming bright enough to challenge the sun. “Let’s say I was surprised to realize my powers work on aliens, too.”

My heart sputtered and joined my nuts inside the well of my stomach as pieces of the puzzle slipped together in my head. No wonder she’d been so protective of the little alien; she’d wrapped her up in her spell. But if she’d gotten Rala, where was—

“Where’s Chatterbox?” I growled, not seeing him anywhere in the room.

“You don’t think we’d leave that tattletale around where he could relay all this to your little girlfriend, do you?”

I let out a loud sigh, hoping she hadn’t hurt him, and fell back against the case I was trapped in, suddenly recognizing it for what it was.

“You have got to be kidding me.” It looked much different from the inside.

Veronica chuckled. “You only wish, Frank.”

We’d never agreed on anything our entire time together, but we did right then. I wished and wished and wished and willed my magic to come to the rescue despite knowing it wasn’t gonna happen. Sure enough, it didn’t.

She waggled a finger at me. “Ah, ah, ah. We’ll have none of that. You might hurt yourself, and we can’t have that now.”

I glared at her, willing her to die. Sadly, that didn’t work either. While I had no idea how she’d managed to put the thing back together, it was clear Veronica had stuffed me inside the same box that Lucifer had stored Gorath. The little squiggly symbols on the outside of the case were magical runes written in an alien language. They were the same ones the book Lucifer had given me were written in; the ones I couldn’t read but knew contained serious magical power and the ability to hold super powerful beings in limbo for thousands of years. That left me pretty damn fucked.

“I can see by the look on your face you’re starting to figure it all out.”

“It’s just gas,” I told her, slumping as deeply as I could into the case. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I had. While I could certainly picture Veronica slipping into the role of villain, she’d never been able to shrug off Baalth’s leash, and she sure as hell shouldn’t have been able to slip mine. But there she was, gloating over me. “If this is about abandoning you in Hell, I—”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You are the dumbest demon I have ever met, Frank. Do you know that?”

“I’m starting to get that picture, yeah.”

“This isn’t about you leaving me in Hell, or about you kicking my ass in that hotel room, or punching me in the jaw when I was following you, or…”

This is exactly why men never win arguments with women. I couldn’t remember what I’d had for breakfast that morning let alone all the shit I’d done to Veronica over the years, but she had it all on instant recall. I bet she could account for every errant fart I’d ever hotboxed her with under the covers, too.

“…or beating me when you came back to Earth, or—”

“Whoa there,” I told her, hearing that last bit. “I never touched…”

My voice drifted away as Veronica turned her face toward me, her hand wiping at the layers of makeup to reveal the bruise I’d seen on her face earlier.

“But…I—”

“Don’t sweat it, Frank, I can’t really blame the last one on you,” she said. “Not entirely, at least. You’re too stupid to even know what you’ve done.”

“No.” I shook my head as memories bounced around my skull like it was a pinball machine, lights whirring and bells ringing.

Snippets of images appeared, my fist crashing into Veronica’s face, over and over and over, her eyes rolling back in her head. The taste of warm blood blossomed on my tongue as her nose crunched beneath my hand, the skin at her cheek splitting while the bone below shattered. I could see my fingerprints on her throat.

“When did…” I couldn’t get the question out. My gaze slid over to Rala as more memories popped up, me backhanding her to the floor and throwing the tome at her as she cowered. Rala barely met my eyes as I stared. My stomach twisted itself in knots, bile churning. “But I didn’t…I wouldn’t have done…
that
.” Every word tasted of lies.

I had done exactly that.

My head dropped against the case, and I was actually glad it was there for a moment, otherwise I would have collapsed. The weight of what I’d done crushed the air from my lungs. I could see it; could see it all. My every breath steamed the glass. Was this the price of Longinus’ power?

“Starting to get it now, huh, Frank?” Veronica glared at me, but her expression was strange. There was anger and hurt and disgust all mixed in, but yet I was sure I could see a dash of regret peppered over the top.

My pulse dimmed as I sunk into myself. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I thought back to what I’d done, the visions crowding my head, but I was hesitant take ownership of them but there was no avoiding it.

“I’m sorry,” I said to neither of them; to both.

“It’s too late for all that now.” Veronica looked down on me, shaking her head. “Raise him up, Rala.”

The alien nodded and reached over for something out of my line of sight. There was a click and a whirr and the case I was locked into started to inch upward as if helping me to stand. It crept on, my field of vision expanding. Rala clutched to a small switch, a red and green button prominent on its face. She looked away every time I tried to meet her eyes, but there was no mistaking the sorrow that darkened her stripes. While she’d do exactly what Veronica wanted, succubus bridle in full effect, she couldn’t hide her true feelings. She was as reluctant to do what she was asked as I was to have it done to me.

“What’s the plan?” I asked Veronica, half-ass stalling for time and hoping for a miracle.

She poked the case right above my forehead with her index finger, the glass
pinking
. “You know it as well as us, Frank.”

But I didn’t. I didn’t have a damn clue, but it was obvious Veronica wouldn’t be moved to tell me. She turned to Rala. “Go get him.”

The alien turned and strode away, disappearing somewhere behind me. My eyes followed her until she was gone, the room suddenly coming into focus in her absence. I’d been so intent upon the women that I hadn’t even realized where I was. A frigid chill erupted at the base of my skull and swept the length of my spine, arms tingling.

I was in the gate room.

The emerald green flicker of the alien portal fluttered a few feet away from where I stood trapped inside the magic-dampening case. It hung in the air, giving off tiny pulses of energy that barely pierced the box, but I could feel each and every single tap of its power. All around me the pentagram stretched out. I had been set inside its circle, which pretty much guaranteed that whatever Veronica intended, my ass wasn’t gonna appreciate it. The massive cable I’d followed from the old power plant ran into the room, the ends plugged into some small box the size of an old microwave. Like the room I’d gotten zapped in, the box was made out of silver. Uncomfortable thoughts woke in my brain.

“Don’t do this, please. Veronica.” I didn’t beg or whine or demand, but you’d have to be tone deaf to not hear the desperation that tinted my voice.

Empty silence answered me. I couldn’t see her, but I heard her footsteps shuffling about behind me, the quiet whistle of her breath through her nose where it hadn’t yet completely healed. She wasn’t budging.

“Come on, Veronica,” I shouted. “Talk to me.”

She drifted around the side of the case to where I could see her. “It was pretty much guaranteed you’d fuck everybody one day, Frank, but given our experiences together, I would never have imagined you’d have done such a good job of it.”

Ouch.

Rala came back before I could muster a response. The little alien wheeled a gurney around to the other side of the room, a sheet draped over the top of it. I’d seen enough episodes of CSI to know it was a body. Things were going from bad to worse, as if that were actually possible.

“Who’s under the sheet?” I asked, though admittedly, I really didn’t’ want to know the answer. It’s just not in my nature to shut up.

She stopped the gurney right outside the gate, on the opposite side, and locked the wheels down. After that, she cranked the head up so the ghost of asylums past and me were pretty much right in line with each other, then a quick snap of her wrists gave me my answer.

Hobbs stared at me from across the room, his nearly desiccated body strapped tight against the gurney, leather biting into his sallow flesh. His sunken eyes glared at me, but he clearly didn’t have it in him to hate too much right then. A well-aimed burp would probably collapse his ribcage.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

“Fuck you, demon.” His voice was ragged and weak. He looked meanly in my general direction and gave up when his chin slumped to his chest. There wasn’t much fight in him. Rala hovered alongside him as though waiting for something.

That was when I noticed the unfortunate, though quiet distinct, aroma of dread fiend, which somehow managed to slip inside my soon-to-be casket. I craned my neck and spotted a mass of the stinky fuckers filing into the room. They piled up beside Rala, forming a line against the wall. There were five of them, and one look told me what Veronica had dragged them in there for.

“Free me,” I shouted, but they only stared at me, lights on but no one home.

“They’re not yours to command anymore,” Veronica said as she walked over to the first of them and slit its throat.

Blood gushed from its neck as she bent it over, ever the loyal dog, its life spilling onto the gate. The crimson fluid splashed to the floor and was instantly drawn to the lines of the pentagram, filling the shallow grooves with red. Veronica slashed the neck of another and repeated the maneuver.

“Start it up, Rala,” she said, shaking the blood from her knife.

The alien sighed and plucked the tome out from beneath the gurney, tugging it loose from whatever was holding it there. She dropped to the floor and opened the book on her lap as she’d done hundreds of times since I’d dragged her to Earth. There was a big difference this time, though. She drew a deep breath and started at the words, no hint of the fumbling uncertainty she’d show every other time she’d read it. The words flowed with ease, the normally harsh pronunciations slipping through her lips with a rhythmic certainty, her voice clear and sharp.

If ever I’d heard an alien eulogy, this had to be it. There was a chilling finality to what she was saying even though I couldn’t understand a word. I didn’t need to. It was all in the inflection.

Veronica added the blood of the other three dread fiends to the gooey mess on the gate, but a flutter at the portal drew my eyes to it. Serpentine tendrils pierced the green light, the tips drifting from the alien dimension into ours. Wet suckers
smacked
together as the tentacles squeezed loose of the portal, which was now the size of a large pumpkin.

“Uh, guys,” I called out, doing my best not to whimper too much, but you’d have to ask someone else how well I succeeded.

Rala’s gaze darted to the portal, and then right back to the book. Her voice rose up, a little deeper, a little harsher, and the tentacles responded. I let out the breath I’d been holding as the tendrils shifted into reverse and started back into the doorway. A moment later, they had withdrawn out of sight. I couldn’t really bring myself to relax seeing how Veronica’s plans were likely more insidious than letting alien squid creatures chew me up, but I couldn’t get excited about dying to seafood. There was something inherently wrong with going out that way. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on whose side you’re on—I didn’t have to worry about being a shrimp snack. Clearly fate had something in store from me.

Incandescent purple eyes glared at me through the portal.

Eighteen

Rala’s voice hit a jagged crescendo as I stared at the alien eyes peering through dimensions at me. There was no disguising the malevolence buried inside those brilliant orbs. They floated closer to the portal, a feral darkness taking shape around them. Whatever it was, it was coming for me.

The emerald flutter of the portal grew brighter by degrees, the edges creeping outward and becoming larger by inches every few seconds. The eyes held their ground as the dimensions merged, my heart pounding in my chest. Unlike the squids that’d squished their monstrous asses out through the gateway, this thing couldn’t be bothered. It was waiting on the portal to open wide enough before it came through. That meant it was sentient.

“Shit.” It also meant it thought enough of itself to not have to stoop to clambering between dimensions, which in turn meant it wasn’t likely so much an
it
as a person. I sighed. Thinking, reasoning beings and I didn’t get along all that well.

Hobbs grinned as best he could. “Sucks to be you, demon.”

“Ominous, isn’t he?” Veronica asked, both of us ignoring the vampire. She lurked outside of the pentagram, pacing like an anxious cat.

That answered that question. The eyes ground into mine like broken glass. “What is he?” I asked, though I wasn’t really sure I wanted to know.

“Just a sweet little thing God dreamed up one day, long, long ago.” Veronica shrugged. “Don’t know much else about it except that its species goes by the ignominious name of the Devourers.”

Ignominious.
That was a big word meaning I was fixing to get screwed in the worst way possible, sans lube or the generous mercy of spit. My gaze darted to Rala.

“Stop reading the book, please, girl.”

She didn’t spare me a glance, the words spilling from her mouth without slowing. There’d be no help there. Hobbs didn’t give a fuck, and I knew better than to think Veronica would change her mind seeing how she was masterminding everything and…

That last thought rattled ugly inside my head, bouncing around until it sunk in.

“Wait,” I said. “You don’t know what that thing is?” I gestured toward the growing portal with my chin.

Veronica shook her head. “Sort of.”

A piece of the puzzle slapped me across the face. “You’re not in charge here.”