Demonfire (11 page)

“We need to keep this as quiet
as we can,” Dax said. He rubbed his hand across his chest. The pain was
constant now. He sensed the tattoo taking on a life of its own.

“It’s not going to be easy.”
Ed poured eggs into the frying pan as he spoke. “I’m hearing reports from all
over town of strange occurrences that have to be demonic, but no one seems to
have connected the dots. In fact, Eddy, Harlan called, wondering when you were
going to get a story to him about all the weird goings-on. He didn’t sound very
happy.”

“That’s probably an
understatement, knowing Harlan.” Eddy drummed her fingers on the table. “I’m
going to have to come up with some kind of excuse for not working. There’s just
no way I can show up at the paper until this is settled.”

“So how do we keep things
quiet?” Dax threw the question out, not really expecting an answer.

Alton leaned back in his
chair. “I can help.”

Dax turned and stared at the
Lemurian. “How?”

“Hypnosis. Mass compulsion.
Lemurians are fairly adept. How do you think we’ve kept our presence hidden for
so long?”

Ed laughed. “You haven’t
hidden it entirely. I knew you existed.”

Alton nodded. “Agreed, but
everyone, including your daughter, thought you were nuts.” He laughed along
with Ed. “I can discourage memories through compulsion, though I can’t entirely
erase them. I can target one person or the entire community, but I can only do
it a few times before the subjects begin to build up an immunity.”

“Then we save it for when we
really need it.” Dax took a sip of his coffee. He stared at the dark brew in
the thick mug. He was really going to miss coffee when…

Eddy interrupted his musings.
“The last thing we need is Channel Three news showing up with their remote
broadcast truck and beaming our demon invasion into every living room in the
country.” She shook her head and stared at her father.

Then she grinned and looked
directly at Dax. “Is it just me, or does it feel really weird that we’re back
here in Dad’s kitchen getting ready for breakfast? It makes the past two days
feel sort of dreamlike.” She paused to pour herself another cup of coffee.
“Except, of course, we didn’t have Alton before.”

She flashed a bright smile at
the Lemurian. Dax felt an entirely new kind of pain that had nothing to do with
the demon’s curse. Then Eddy walked back to the table and brushed her hand
lightly over Dax’s shoulder as she passed by him. He raised his head and caught
the bright promise in her eyes.

A promise for him, not Alton.
Suddenly Dax had a name for the pain he’d felt.
Jealousy.
Nothing more than jealousy, and there was no time for that. Not now, when time
was so short and every second counted. When every fighter counted.

Ed carried two huge platters
to the table and set them down. “Dig in, guys.” He grinned at Alton and then at
Dax “I still can’t believe I’m sitting down to breakfast with you two.”

Willow buzzed by and flittered
in front of his nose. Ed laughed. “Excuse me, I didn’t meant to exclude you,
Willow.”

Eddy took a seat, but she
glanced at her father. “I’m waiting for you to say, ‘I told you so.’”

Ed just shook his head. “No
need. Having Dax, Alton, and Willow at our table gives me all the satisfaction
I need.”

Their conversation made no
sense. Food, however, made perfect sense. Dax turned to the heavily laden
table. Steam rose from piles of bacon and a mound of scrambled eggs. Fried
potatoes, sliced strawberries, bananas, oranges, and a plate of toast—and all
of it smelled wonderful. He grabbed a strip of bacon. Eddy began loading up her
plate.

Alton merely stared at the
bounty. “Amazing. We have similar foods in Lemuria, but they’re all
manufactured. Created to be wholesome and appetizing for us. I can’t recall
ever seeing, much less eating, the actual foods themselves.”

Dax grinned at him through a
mouthful of bacon. “I’ve never had food like this in my life. It doesn’t try to
bite back.”

“Euuwwww…” Eddy made a face at
him. “Not an image I want while stuffing eggs in my mouth. Killer chickens?
Yuck.”

Dax scooped some of everything
on his plate while Alton did the same. “Not chickens, no, but demons come in
all shapes and sizes on Abyss. Here they might be nothing more than stinking
clouds of black mist, but on Abyss they’re often multi-limbed, some with wings,
others with bodies covered in scales like razors, some with claws almost as
long as Alton’s sword.”

“What about you, Dax? What’s
your demon body like?” Ed paused with a forkful of potatoes in front of his
mouth. “I can’t picture you as anyone other than what you are.”

Dax slathered honey on a piece
of toast and practically moaned when the sweet, gooey stuff hit his taste buds.
He swallowed and tapped his chest, ignoring the pain. “I looked a lot like my
tattoo. Brightly colored scales and long, sharp fangs, except the art’s more
snakelike than I was. I had four multi-jointed arms.” He wiggled his fingers.
“I have a feeling I’m gonna miss those extra arms in battle. I had claws on all
the joints as well as on my hands. I only had two legs but…”

He raised his head, suddenly
aware of the silence at the table. Eddy stared at him with a look of absolute
horror on her face. Ed and Alton didn’t look at him at all.

They watched Eddy.

Dax felt as if someone had
punched him in the gut. He set his fork down and carefully wiped his mouth with
the napkin. All very civilized.
Human.
He thought of
delaying even longer, of taking a swallow of his coffee, but it wouldn’t change
a thing.

He reached across the table
for Eddy’s hand. She quickly slipped it into her lap. Her rejection made him
feel physically ill. “Eddy? What did you think I looked like? I’ve never lied
to you. From the beginning I said I was a demon with scales and claws. Sharp
teeth…the whole bit.”

“I know.” Her voice was so
quiet he barely heard her. “It’s nothing.” She waved her hand, as if shooing
all of them away. Maybe she was trying to erase the graphic visual he’d just
given her. “Eat your breakfast. Please. Don’t mind me.”

Alton nodded and took another
forkful of eggs. Ed munched slowly on a piece of bacon. Dax stared at his plate
and realized his appetite was gone.

He might look like a human. He
was even beginning to think like one, but as far as Eddy was concerned, he was
still a demon. Still the creature of her nightmares.

Carefully, he folded his
napkin and excused himself from the table.

Eddy watched Dax as he
carefully folded his napkin and set it on the table. She should have said
something, anything, as he stood and quietly left the room, but she didn’t. She
couldn’t. She wanted to slap herself, but she’d completely forgotten he wasn’t
human.

She’d been so busy fighting
her attraction to a man she hardly knew, she’d not even considered who or what
he really was.

So
what…like it matters?

He’d put his life on the line,
just as Alton had. Just as Willow or her dad had.

The same
as me.

They were all on the same
team. Her reaction had been totally inexcusable. No matter what he once was or
who he was now, she’d been rude and dead wrong to act like there was anything
at all awry with him. She owed him an apology, whether he’d accept it or not.

“Excuse me.” Mortified, Eddy
kept her head down as she left the table, unwilling to meet either her father’s
eyes or Alton’s.

Dax had quietly slipped out
the back door.

Eddy followed him. She found
him, finally, out in her dad’s workshop staring at the train layout with the
scale model of Mount Shasta in the middle.

“Dax? I’m sorry. I…” She
paused in midstep as he turned around and smiled sadly at her.

“It’s okay, Eddy. I forget,
too.” He looked down at his long, lean body, comfortably dressed in worn
Levi’s, boots, and a plaid flannel shirt. Then he raised his head. His gaze was
direct, without shame or subterfuge. He was what he was.

“I’ve already grown so used to
this body, I don’t think of myself as a demon. Not anymore.”

He hissed out a sharp breath
and flattened his hand to his chest. Eddy bridged the gap between them.

“The tat?”

He nodded. She quickly reached
for the top button on his shirt, but he covered her hand with his and gazed
directly into her eyes. “Maybe it’s better if I just deal with it.”

No need to slap herself. Dax
could do it for her. She lowered her head and stared at her toes. “Maybe it’s
not. I can help you. The pain exhausts you, and we need you healthy.”

She felt his chest rise and
fall with his sigh, but he moved his hand away from hers. She unbuttoned his
shirt, this time opening it all the way to the waistband of his jeans.

The tattoo looked angry and
inflamed, writhing over his muscular abdomen and crawling up his powerful chest
in a slow, rhythmic pulse. The burn appeared to be healing, but the tattoo was
a thing alive. She could have sworn the beady eyes on the snake watched her.

Every time she saw it, the
tattoo seemed more alive, more aware, almost as if it gained life with the
passage of time. She covered its head with her palm. Used her other hand to
cover the scaled belly on the tattoo. It pulsed and writhed beneath her
fingers. She shuddered and concentrated on not jerking her hands away from the
damned thing.

Closing her eyes, she
projected good, healing thoughts, on taking the pain from Dax and sending it
away…far, far away where it couldn’t hurt him. She had no idea what she did, or
if it really worked, but if Dax thought her touch helped ease the pain, she was
willing to do anything for him.

Demon or not.

The heat from the tattoo
surged beneath her palms, burning her skin until she shivered with the intense
pain. Even so, she kept her hands pressed close against it and thought of Dax
without pain. Imagined the curse healed and his powers intact.

She didn’t have a clue what
she was doing. Absorbing his pain, somehow? She had no idea. She felt like a
fraud, but after a couple of very long minutes, Dax’s skin grew cooler and the
sense of movement beneath her hand stopped. All she felt now was naturally warm
skin and the slow, steady beat of his heart.

She didn’t want to take her
hands away. At some point, Dax’s arms had slipped around her waist. Now he rested
his chin on the top of her head, and his hands gently rubbed her lower back.
Held in his comforting embrace, she could so easily forget what he was and why
he was here.

And how soon he would be gone.

Held close, comforted by his
strength and the goodness in him she couldn’t deny, all Eddy could think of was
the way his body felt this close to hers, and how he’d held her against him and
comforted her last night when she’d been so frustrated—and more than a little
afraid.

He might have been a demon at one
time, but she sensed nothing evil about Dax now. Without even considering the
consequences, Eddy leaned closer and pressed her lips to his chest, right over
the cursed tattoo.

She felt Dax’s sigh and
slipped even closer as he tightened his arms around her. She turned her face
and rested her cheek against the muscular curve of his pectoral muscles where
the snake’s fearsome mouth gaped wide, fully aware of the creature’s scales and
fangs, of its brilliant colors and deadly threat.

Of the fact it appeared to
have a life of its own, a sentience separate from Dax.

Dax said it carried his demon
powers, easily accessible so that he could use them while in human form, but
since the demon’s curse, it was fighting every minute of every day to turn
those same powers against him.

Except that somehow, for
whatever reason, Eddy seemed to exert her own power over the curse. She
couldn’t deny what she’d just experienced, no matter how impossible it seemed.
Her touch soothed the snake and contained the demon powers. She only hoped it was
enough.

It had to be. Worlds depended
on Dax. And, for what it was worth, Dax depended on her.

Dax rested his cheek against
the top of Eddy’s head and held her close. His heart actually ached more than
the damned tattoo when he held her like this. His throat seemed to swell with
all the things he wanted to say, words he hardly understood. All these feelings
pouring through him were so unexpected, so hard to deal with.

He hadn’t expected anything
like Eddy when he took the Edenites’ offer. He’d expected nothing but one
bloody fight after another, and maybe, just maybe, a shot at Paradise. No one
had said anything about the humans he might meet.

About Eddy Marks.

It was all about the demons
and the battle he must not, could not, lose. Was that why he’d found Eddy? Had
she been put in his path on purpose? If so, he knew exactly why, and damn, but
it was so unfair.

She was the one he was
fighting for. Not for a chance at Paradise, or to prove himself as a warrior.
It wasn’t for Alton or Ed or even Taron and the promise Dax had made to him.
Not even to save the world.

It was all for Eddy.
Everything. He knew that now. If he lost the battle, he would be condemning
Eddy Marks to death, or a life under demon rule even worse than death.

He felt the tattoo move across
his flesh. Felt the power in it surge across his upper thigh, over his groin,
and up his belly to the point above his heart, power running through his veins
like liquid fire. Not the demon’s curse. Not this time. Now it was the strength
of Dax’s own convictions bringing the thing to life, overpowering the curse, at
least for now.

He lifted his head and cupped
Eddy’s face in his palms. She gazed up at him, her dark brown eyes brimming
with tears, her lips slightly parted. Dax felt drawn to her mouth, felt the
purity of her love, a love he doubted even Eddy understood.

He knew he’d never figure it
out, but he would protect it. Protect her. He lowered his face and captured her
lips with his. She whimpered, making a low cry deep in her throat. Her arms
slipped around his waist; her hips thrust forward until she and he connected in
a solid line of heat and life and hope.

Dax kissed her, well aware he
made yet another promise. The most important promise of all. “Once a demon, but
a demon no more,” he whispered between the small, quick kisses he left on her
lips, her chin, the line of her jaw. “For all the days left to me, I will keep
you safe, and when I am gone, I swear I will still watch over you.”

She raised her head, smiled at
him, and touched her fingertips to the side of his mouth. “I refuse to talk
about you leaving. We have work to do.” She leaned away so she could reach his
shirt, and slowly, one by one, closed the buttons over his belly and chest.
“Way too much to do to spend time out here like this. No matter how much I want
to.”

He took a deep breath and
forced his fears back inside where they belonged. “You’re right.” He took her
hand and turned toward the house. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

She laughed and leaned against
him, hugging her arms around his biceps. “Let’s see if they left us some
breakfast.”

They stepped out of Ed’s
workshop and started back toward the house. A harsh scream ripped through the
midmorning quiet. Bumper barked. Ed and Alton raced through the front door. Ed
called out, “Dax! Eddy! Across the street!”

Eddy and Dax ran through the
yard toward the sound of yet another horrifying scream.

Under other circumstances,
Eddy thought, this might have been humorous, but it wasn’t funny at all. Not
even considering that Mr. Puccini had been the grumpiest neighbor on the block
for as long as she could remember, and he probably deserved a good scare. When
she was little, she used to wish even worse things would happen to him, but not
this, not now.

Backed up against the corner post
on the front porch of his little Craftsman-style house, the old man was
wide-eyed and trembling and obviously terrified. He clasped one hand over his
heart and clutched the porch railing with the other. Blood dripped from a small
gash on his left hand.

A ceramic turkey with a
razor-sharp beak full of even sharper teeth advanced in an awkward,
uncoordinated gait. Blood spotted its beak, and a few small spatters marked the
porch. The air reeked of sulfur.

It was enough to make Eddy’s
blood run cold.

Especially since it was at
least ten o’clock in the morning and the sun was high in the sky. She grabbed
Dax’s wrist as the four of them circled the animated creature. “You said demons
lost their power in daylight.”

He shot her a frustrated
glance. “They do. Usually.”

“What is that thing? Get it
away from me!” Mr. Puccini’s voice quavered. His breath shot out in short
gasps.

“We will, Dom. It’ll be okay.”
Ed moved around to stand beside his neighbor. The ceramic turkey let out a
squawk that was somewhere between a gobble and the strangled cry of a banshee.
It slowly pivoted its head from its primary target to stare at Ed, and then on
around in a full circle to take in Alton, Eddy, and Dax.

When it saw Dax, it screeched
again. The body spun to match the direction the beak was pointing, until the
entire creature faced him. Ed grabbed his elderly neighbor by the arm, tugged
him past the brightly painted turkey and down the steps.

“Move him out of harm’s way,
Ed. Around the side of the house.” Dax’s voice was calm, his demeanor that of a
man in charge.

Eddy glanced at him and
realized he didn’t want their neighbor to see what he was about to do. “C’mon,
Dad. Let’s get out of Dax’s way.” She slipped around behind Dax and helped her
father walk their dazed neighbor around the corner of his house.

Alton stayed beside Dax. His
crystal sword glowed through the scabbard across his back. His white robe
flowed about his ankles.

Eddy and her dad got Mr.
Puccini to the side yard, where there was a small garden bench. As she helped
him sit, Eddy heard a loud whoosh and a prolonged sizzle. A banshee screech
with a strange stereo effect cut off in mid howl. The stink of sulfur
dissipated within seconds.

Mr. Puccini stared at Ed and
then turned to Eddy. “What in God’s name…?” He shook his head, wide-eyed and
still confused.

Dax touched Eddy’s shoulder.
“They’re gone,” he said. “Here. I think Alton can help.”

Alton squatted down so that he
was at eye level with their elderly neighbor. “Are you okay?”

“Who the hell are you?” Dom
Puccini gaped at Alton and then glared at Ed. “What kind of crazies you got
hanging out at your place, Ed?”

“Friends of Eddy’s, Dom.
They’re good kids.”

Eddy leaned close to Dax. “I
guess he’s feeling better.”

Alton slowly passed his palm
in front of Mr. Puccini’s eyes. The man shut his mouth, and his head turned to
follow the movement of Alton’s long fingers.

Alton moved his hand away, and
Mr. Puccini blinked. “What’d you say your name was, young man?”

Ed quickly interrupted.
“They’re my daughter’s old college friends, Dom. I want you to meet Al and Dax.
Boys, this is Mr. Puccini. He’s been our neighbor since Eddy was just a tiny
thing.”

The old man shook his head.
“What happened? I can’t remember what happened.” He tried to stand. Alton held
out a hand and gently helped him to his feet.

Mr. Puccini’s gaze went up,
and up higher, as Alton stood. He shook his head again, still obviously
disoriented. His white hair stood up in tangles and tufts about his florid
face.

Dax took Mr. Puccini’s other
arm, and he and Alton slowly walked him back to the front porch. Dax looked
over the man’s head at Eddy and shrugged.

She smiled and waved her hand
toward the shattered pile of what was left of the ceramic turkey. “I think you
must have tripped over old Tom, Mr. Puccini. We heard you yell….”

“And there was a loud crash,”
Dax added.

“You might have bumped your
head. Looks like you cut your hand on one of the shards.” Ed helped Mr. Puccini
sit on the porch steps. “Eddy? Can you get a broom and maybe find a bandage?”

“Right away, Dad.” She grabbed
Dax’s hand and dragged him inside the house. Alton followed close behind.
“Check the place,” she whispered. “See if there’re more demons around.”