Drowning In The Dark: #4 The Veil Series (21 page)

“
Y
ou want a drink
?”

“No, I’m good.” Ryder and I were in some half-baked attempt at a motel somewhere down the east coast. I stood at the window, arms crossed, squinting into the headlights of each passing car. I’d adjusted Stefan’s blood-red coat so it fit my physique, although it was still too long around my ankles. I kept it on, finding solace in the smell of warm leather and winter. It had been a week since I’d wiped out most of the netherworld. Behind me, on the TV, a news report rattled off the number of demons captured and killed in the past twenty fours hours. No new netherworld breaches had opened. Most had closed. But not the one in Boston. That still oozed like a festering wound. Nothing substantial had come through, not yet, or so the press said. The demons who remained on this side were being hunted with extreme prejudice. Anything remotely demon was a target. The strength of the veil fluctuated. In places like Boston and New York, where the attacks had been most ferocious, the veil barely existed at all, and the lesser demons still broke through. In others areas, mostly rural, the veil pulsed, separating the two worlds. Would it all fall eventually? Was this the human world now? Scarred and tainted by the netherworld?

I didn’t sleep. Killing demons helped me forget what I’d done, what had been done to those I cared about. Ryder joined my nightly hunts. So that’s what we did. By night, we hunted lesser demons and kicked their asses back to hell or killed them if they wouldn’t go quietly. By day, we travelled south. Needing to get away.

“I got a call.” Ryder sat back in a chair, boots up on the table, beer in one hand while he rubbed his shoulder, still bruised from where Val had stabbed him.

“I thought we agreed no phones.”

“Yeah, well, I got a throwaway and dialed up a mailbox I set up should the shit hit the fan. As this pretty much qualifies, I tried it. Jenna left a message.”

“Is she okay?”

Ryder nodded and took a long drink of his beer. “As much as any of us. What she said… You ain’t gonna like it. Adam is flaunting his demon-killing weapon, A-K-A Dawn. The Institute saved the day.” He saluted me with his beer can. “Hoo-fuckin’-ray.”

Dammit. Adam had more lives than a cat and could spin my bomb blast into a goldmine PR opportunity. “And?” There was definitely more. Ryder was too grim for there to be any good coming my way.

“He has my kid.”

I gritted my teeth. “I’ll kill him.”

He tipped his beer in acknowledgement, “You gotta get through Dawn first.”

“Ryder, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t. This ain’t your fault.” He rocked the chair back. “There’s more…” He hesitated, giving me a sideways glance. “There are reports of an ice demon loose in Boston. So far, it’s mixed messages. Some news reports have the demon on our side, others…not so much. Coleman’s talking to witnesses.”

“Stefan?”

Ryder nodded, “We don’t know, but it seems likely. Sounds like he’s alive, so that’s something.” Why didn’t he sound pleased? “You said he was good, right? I mean, I watched him get between you and Dawn. Demons don’t do self-sacrifice.”

Tell that to Akil,
I thought. “Yeah. Being back, having a purpose helped him sort his shit out.” If Stefan had gone over to the dark side, we’d know. All of Boston would know. Like me, he didn’t do things by halves. “There are other badass ice demons. But if it is him, he’s probably doing the same as us, tying up loose ends, killing stray lessers.” I trusted Stefan. He’d faced his storm, and survived, as I supposed had I. Was surviving enough?

Ryder scratched at his bristly chin. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Have you called Jenna back?”

“Not yet. Wanted to chat with you first.” Ryder dropped the chair forward and leaned both arms on the table. He downed his beer, crushed the can, and tossed it onto the tabletop. “I gotta go back.”

Of course he did. Adam had him under the thumb. Ryder’s kid needed him. I bowed my head and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to go back to Boston. Boston was Akil, and Akil was gone. A painful knot attempted to choke me. I gulped it away and twisted my lips, forcing out the quiver. I hadn’t cried. I hadn’t stopped to think. I couldn’t. Nothing around me had changed. The world still turned. The seconds ticked by. The hours turned to days. The world
should
have stopped. Something should have changed. Akil was gone. Why hadn’t anything changed? The sun still shone; life continued its relentless march as though Akil had never happened. Well, fuck that. He’d happened to me, and I’d changed. I shuddered and gulped back the burn of grief. Not yet. Not now. I couldn’t face the fact he wasn’t out there somewhere, manipulating someone or something so he could get back. He always had a plan. Always. But he hadn’t planned for death. No immortal did.

“Are you coming back with me?” Ryder asked.

I lifted my gaze and saw Ryder’s expression twist from regret to alarm. Something in my eyes had him tensing in his chair, his body freezing, muscles locking, ready to react. His glance at Stefan’s gun resting on the bedside indicated he was worried. Not just worried, but afraid of me, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d told him I had everything in check, and I did. I was more level, more stable, than I’d ever been, but that didn’t change his memory of seeing me go nuclear and kill thousands of demons in one terrifying moment. He hadn’t left my side since guiding me away from the battlefield. I’d had to convince him I was a big girl and could pee alone. Otherwise, he’d have hovered over me in the bathroom too. He was afraid of me, for me, for those around me. He was my mentor, my guardian, and if need be, my executioner. I’d never hurt Ryder. He was my failsafe.

I forced a smile across my lips. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m all good.”

Ryder relaxed, but not entirely. He sat back and angled himself away from the table, giving himself room to spring out of the chair and lunge for the gun if he had to. “You know why Adam has my kid, right?”

“Leverage. He wants you to hand me in.”

“Yeah, that’s what I reckon. I won’t do it.”

“Go back. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Raking a hand through his hair, he chewed on his reply, obviously unhappy about leaving me. He settled his gaze on me, and his eyes narrowed in assessment. I stood demon-still and watched him watching me. “You’re one scary-ass demon, Muse.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“You should come back.”

Boston. Akil. I turned my head away. “Maybe.”

“The netherworld still bleeds through there. Forget the Institute, Boston could really do with you. If not for what’s right, go back for Stefan? Adam still has a termination order out on his son. It’s personal now, and he has Dawn to do his killing for him.”

There was that damn knot again. I growled low to clear it and hugged Stefan’s coat tighter. There were still unanswered questions from that day on the battlefield. Why wasn’t my father with the princes when they came through? Did the other half bloods survive? The two young kids, Adam’s Projects. Were they out there? Were they dangerous? And Dawn, damn her. She couldn’t be saved. Her young mind had been crushed beneath the influence of her demon. Adam controlled her, but for how long? I did have to go back. I couldn’t run from this. Certainly couldn’t hide. “I’ll think about it while we kick some demon-ass.”

Ryder stood and collected the gun. He checked the chamber, going through the routine as he always did. “Alright, but by the morning, I’m outtah this shit hole.”

A genuine, if fragile, smile played on my lips as I headed for the bathroom. “I’ll be right out.” I flicked on the light and locked the door behind me. My reflection revealed a gaunt woman, cheekbones too prominent and eyes too harsh. I saw more demon in my face than human. Parting my lips, I checked my canine teeth—still blunt. The last thing I needed was
demon
leeching through into my human appearance. Not that it mattered. People seemed to steer out of my way, consciously or unconsciously. I’d cleared a grocery store a day ago; the customers suddenly had somewhere else to be. People feel the unnatural like wild animals sense a storm coming. The demons too, they saw me coming and ran. I had become the monster my brother so despised and revered. I truly was the Mother of Destruction. Akil would have been proud.

I shrugged off Stefan’s coat, rolled up my sleeves, and splashed water on my face. Beneath the stark light from the single bulb, I didn’t even recognize the woman I’d become. Perhaps that was a good thing.

Warmth throbbed in my chest. I leaned into the vanity unit, hands gripping the edges, and closed my eyes. The tentative exploration of fire gently fed through my veins, radiating from my core. The tingling taste of spices tickled my lips. Lifting my head, I leaned back, and let the familiar embrace coil around me. Akil. I could almost convince myself he stood in the room with me, that it wasn’t the soul-lock playing tricks. It didn’t take much for me to pretend his arms closed around me. He would whisper something infuriating against my neck, his lips brushing my skin like butterfly wings. I missed him. I missed him so much that I gladly lost myself to fantasy. I became simply aware of how the wallpaper gained dark patches, as though fire damaged. Where the paper peeled, embers traced the dog-eared edges. Water in the basin bubbled, but I was too wrapped up in my own mind to care. A demon loomed behind me in the mirror. His muscular bulk brimmed the bathroom, filling the space from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Slick crimson skin glistened. White-hot piercings rode the edges of his wings and hung from his ears and nose. Obsidian horns spiraled from his head. He closed his huge arms around me and drew me back against the searing touch of his chest. In my mind, he was Akil. I wanted him to be Akil, even if my eyes told me a very different story. My element reached for his. The demon bowed his head as his wings closed in. He said something almost too soft to catch, or perhaps I imagined it. “
Amanat
.” I understood the meaning of the word, even though I didn’t recognize the language or the voice speaking it. One word to mean something valuable in safe keeping, a debt to be repaid, a trust which must be returned. I knew, instinctively, that was that debt, that valuable item.

Eyelids heavy, I blinked at the obscure picture in the mirror. I’d seen him once before. I knew him. His fire, his blood, ran through my veins. We were kin, he and I.
Make her bleed, make her read...
I saw the past in metal. My brother saw the future in flesh, and this demon... he had the power to warp it all, to twist my human thoughts around his finger, make me believe anything. Akil’s phantom presence vanished, taking my smoky dream state with it. I came back to myself, clutched against the chest of a demon I’d spent my entire life trying to hide from. Trapped inside his arms, pressed against his chest, his scent so pungent it burned my throat, I couldn’t run, couldn’t fight, couldn’t cry out, and the sordid yellow eyes revealed he knew it. I did the only thing possible when faced with fate. I smiled.

“Hello, Father.”

T
o be continued
in the final book of The Veil Series.
Book 5, Ties That Bind
, coming Spring 2015.

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isit
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T
he Veil Series
wouldn’t exist without the following people. My editor, Karen, for teaching me about the finer points of dry heaving and leaving little smiley face comments as our own virtual fist bumps. My proofreader, Nic, for catching those pesky typos and working weekends. My cover artist, Celairen, because you were there at the very beginning, just like me. My husband, for listening to me ramble on about Amazon bestseller lists, algorithms, BookBub, keywords, while at least pretending to pay attention. And to my little girls, for making me laugh, even when the words fail me.

A
nd oh
, to you wonderful readers. Every single one of you who’s taken the time to reach out to me, send emails, leave reviews, chat with me on Goodreads and Twitter. I love you all, and send you a virtual hug. We’re close to Book 5 (the final book), and I’ve already shed a few tears for what’s to come. Like me, you’ve experienced the highs and lows of Muse’s life. Soon, it will be time to let her go. All good things must come to an end. Thank you so much for reading and I’ll see you for Book 5.

P
ippa
.