Realm Walker (19 page)

When she stepped out of the aisle, she found Michael waiting for her at the end of his. He nodded to her and started down the next row of cubicles. It made her smile that he checked on her.

She made it no more than two steps down the next aisle before a heavy hand clamped over her mouth, covering her nose. At the same instant, her assailant’s other hand snared her wrist in a bruising grip. Her arm bent almost to the point of breaking and she was forced to drop her sword. It hit the carpet with a soft thud no louder than a misplaced footfall.

She clawed at the hand on her mouth, twisted her body but was no match for the strength of the man behind it. He yanked her back against his firm body and she recognized it instantly. Thomas. The demon found her first. Relief warred with anxiety. Thomas was alive, but she was at the demon’s mercy. It shifted its hand so her nose was free and she sucked in a greedy lungful of cinder and ash tainted air.

It dragged her into one of the offices that ringed the room. It spun her in one fluid motion and clamped a hand around her throat, instantly cutting off her ability for speech. With the other hand, the demon closed the door and flipped the lock. It pushed her backward until she hit the wall, lifting her off the floor by the hand still wrapped around her neck.

Wheezing breaths worked their way into her lungs, but it wasn’t enough to keep spots from clouding the edge of her vision. She gripped the arm with both hands trying to pull it away, to relieve some of the pressure. Suffocation was shaping up to be one of her least favorite ways to die. She was going to kick this demon’s rotted carcass straight back to its realm when she came back to life. Just when she thought she was going to pass out, it released her completely.

Her feet slammed against the floor and the rest of her would have followed if the hand hadn’t clamped around her neck again. The grip was looser this time. She could breathe, but only with effort. She’d take it. Any breath was better than none, even if the taint of the demon rode the air and coated her insides.

The demon leaned forward laying its face alongside hers. It inhaled and sighed in contentment. “Hello again, Hound.” It ran its tongue along her pulse point and she shivered. She wished she could say it was entirely from revulsion but the demon inhabited her mate’s body. And she had always responded to Thomas.

“You torment me, did you know that? I’ve been watching you since almost the first moment I appeared in this realm,” it said, its voice low but unmistakably Thomas. It wasn’t him, though. He was merely a puppet acting for his master. A vise grip squeezed her heart. Thomas was the strongest being she knew. If the demon bested him, what hope did the rest of them have? Then its words sank through the fog of panic. She
had
seen someone outside her house the night she fought the troll. And then later she’d seen him in the warehouse mutilated and destroyed and she’d never even realized it.

She closed her eyes listening for some sign of Michael. She heard nothing, but he’d be looking for her.

“The sole purpose of my summoning was to kill you, to make sure you died in such a way you couldn’t be resurrected.” The demon’s breath was warm against her skin. “But if I kill you, my master, my real master, will hold my life forfeit. You’re not worth dying over. But if I do not kill you, I can’t return to my realm. Decisions, decisions.”

She said nothing. She wasn’t sure she could have even if she wanted to. If the demon didn’t return to its realm, its power would begin to fade. Eventually it would die. So the choice seemed to be a slow death or a quick one. She knew which way she leaned but she didn’t think it wanted her opinion.

It stepped back to look in her eyes. “And this host retains more of its will than any I’ve ever experienced before. He is currently being most vocal about my treatment of you. It is...different.”

It loosened its grip slightly, running a thumb along her pulse point. “That scene at the house? All that destruction? That was him. Mostly anyway. He was most difficult to take over. His rage was the door that let me in. I fed it, fueled it, but I think he rather enjoyed it.”

She wanted to believe he was lying. That her mate had been nothing more than the weapon the murderer used. But she knew Thomas better than that. She was his and they hadn’t protected her. Regardless of the fact she came back, she’d died and someone was going to pay for it. Because Raoul wasn’t immediately available, he’d taken it out on the rest of the coven. She hoped Thomas would have been a little less bloody had he been in control but she couldn’t be sure of that.

She did know that every one of the people she encountered in the building who wasn’t dead owed his or her life to Thomas. The demon had no reason to keep them alive, but the vampire had no reason to kill them. The vampire had evidently won. It made her feel better for Thomas’s chances.

The demon inhaled deeply, its eyelids fluttering. Thomas’s eyes darkened and his fangs extended. Once again, it laid his face alongside hers to speak in her ear. “Should I suck the sweet blood from your veins? Should I drain every last drop from you until you fade into nothingness? It is why I am here and there is no release for me until I finish you.”

Teeth scraped her skin. Her pulse skipped and raced. Panic clawed at her insides. Images of Raoul flashed through her mind. Pinning her down, draining her, raping her. The demon knew this. It had read her file and was using it against her. Anger forced its way past the panic, helped her regain control.

The doorknob rattled and the demon spun to face it with a hiss.

“Michael,” she managed to force out of her damaged throat. It wasn’t loud, but she knew he could hear her.

“Juliana!” A thud reverberated through the room as Michael threw himself against the door.

The demon turned to her, fury contorting Thomas’s features into an unrecognizable mask. Metal groaned as Michael threw himself against the door again. She heard sirens on the street below.

“It seems the time has come for me to go,” it growled. “Come and find me, Hound.”

It released her and she fell to the ground, her hand cradling her throat. After kicking out the window, it stood on the sill and looked back at her. With a grin, it waved and launched itself through the opening just as Michael finally broke through the door.

He glanced at her and, once assured she still breathed, unshouldered the rifle and rushed to the window. An icy shard of panic pierced her chest. Michael could hit a coin dead center at three hundred paces. And he aimed to kill. She launched herself at his legs and knocked him off balance just as he fired. If he’d seen her coming, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Ever the professional, he ignored her and re-aimed. “Damn it, lost my shot,” he spat and lowered the rifle. “What the hell was that?”

She clenched her jaw and wrapped a hand around her throat. “You can’t kill him.” Every word felt like sandpaper rubbing against her throat. It didn’t sound much better than it felt.

He looked at her a moment, then sighed and knelt in front of her. He laid the gun on the floor beside them. “I have a feeling you may regret doing that,” he said as he wrapped his hand around hers and gently pulled it away from her throat. “I thought he bit you.”

“Wanted to. You interrupted.” Her voice sounded a little better with each word but it hurt like hell to talk. She needed to communicate as much as possible with as few words as she could.

He helped her to her feet. “He’s gone again. Jumped to the building across the street. I might make the jump, but I can’t guarantee the shape I’d be in after.”

They needed to trap him somewhere he couldn’t get away while she figured this out. She just needed time to think. The seeds of a new plan started to grow. She needed to run it by Michael, though there really wasn’t a point. He was going to hate it. He always hated her plans.

“Freeze,” a voice said from the doorway, chasing any other thought away.

“Well, this should be fun,” Michael said as he laced his fingers on top of his head.

Chapter Twenty

Thirty minutes later Juliana sat in the back of the ambulance while a medic tried to convince her to go to a hospital or at least check in at the Agency. She shook her head for the third time. He threw his hands up in exasperation and stormed off to find someone more cooperative to treat.

As soon as she stepped around Michael so the cop upstairs could see both their badges, he apologized and escorted them down. It hadn’t taken long for them to piece together what happened. Someone had seen Michael run into the building, rifle in hand, and called the cops. The police and the Agency had arrived almost simultaneously. Both of them wanted to know why they hadn’t called in the sighting of Thomas.

Michael made himself scarce as soon as he was able, claiming he needed to take care of something. He just didn’t want anyone looking at his credentials too closely. Her story was that she wasn’t certain Thomas was on the premises and until she was, she didn’t see the point calling in resources needed elsewhere.

For a moment, she was blissfully alone. She sat on the floor at the back of the ambulance, one leg swinging in the air below and the other knee drawn up so she could rest her elbow on it. She held an icepack to her throat, surprised at how much it helped. Closing her eyes, she dropped her head forward and just enjoyed the cool sensation on her tortured neck.

“Norris!” Ben’s voice boomed from across the street. Though she was sure he attracted the attention of everyone else in the area, she ignored him.

“Norris!” he yelled again, closer this time. Still not worth her attention. The conversation would be a repeat of their earlier one and she didn’t see the point. Nor did she have the patience.

“Don’t you ignore me, Walker,” he said. She kept her head down but opened her eyes to find herself looking at his dilapidated dress shoes. He’d worn the same pair every day since she first met him. Maybe she’d give him a gift card for Christmas.

“You let him go, didn’t you?” he demanded.

“No,” she lied without looking at him. The only person that knew she’d let Thomas escape was Michael and he wasn’t about to tell anyone, least of all her boss. Ben could bluster and scream all he wanted, but she wasn’t killing her mate. And neither was anyone else if she could help it.

“Don’t lie to me.”

She didn’t think she’d ever heard him this angry. About anything. He grabbed her shoulders and jerked her to her feet. The icepack fell to the ground. “This is why I didn’t want you involved. You let him go, I know you did.”

She clenched her hands at her sides reminding herself of all the reasons knocking him out would be a bad idea. She slowly raised her head to look him in the eyes. “I wasn’t exactly in control of the situation, sir,” she said with every ounce of disdain she felt for him at that moment. “But I am in control of this one. Get your damn hands off me.”

His eyes fell from hers to look at her throat, which was no doubt starting to show its bruises. He dropped his hands away from her shoulders and took a step back. “I see.”

She studied him for a moment, tried to understand what was going on in his head. “No, I don’t think you do,” she said after a moment. “He jumped out of a seventh-story window, and landed on a building across the street. Then he got up and ran away.”

“I already know that.” He shifted his weight on his feet and frowned at her.

“Then you also know he’s demon-ridden and you will report it as such. The gods help you if you don’t.”

A flush crept up his face. “Are you threatening me, Norris?”

“It’s not a threat. It’s a statement of fact.” She closed the small distance between them and locked eyes with him. “Every officer and agent on this street saw what he did. It will be in their reports. My report will state that you were informed of Thomas’s status some time ago. Initial skepticism on your part is to be understood, even commended. But if you continue to ignore what’s right in front of your face because of some personal power trip, you’re going to be the one they hand over to the executioner when this is done. I’ll make sure of it.”

His face was now crimson with fury and she knew he was trying to find an argument, but there was none. Her words were true. He knew it and that probably pissed him off more than anything. She gave him one last long look then stepped around him and headed to the opposite side of the street where Michael waited in the car.

He pulled away from the curb as soon as she shut her door. “What was that about?”

“Just making sure my boss did the right thing and quit being an ass. We’ll see if it works. We might need some outside help on this one. As much as I hate to give them credit for anything, the Council is superb at this clandestine bullshit.”

* * *

It had almost killed her. The dark thing inside Thomas had wrapped his hand around his bride’s throat and nearly suffocated her. And there wasn’t a cursed thing Thomas had been able to do about it. He’d been most verbal about his dislike of the situation, but that was all. He’d tried to take his body back, to regain control, but it was hopeless.

It seemed the only part of his body he was still in sole ownership of was his mind. The demon continually attempted to access information, but Thomas only allowed it into certain areas. He was afraid without that small bit of defiance he would lose himself completely.

Even now the demon tortured, endlessly tormented those around him and there was nothing Thomas could do. Not that he tried. No, as much as he hated what the demon was doing, he needed to save his strength, use it to save Juliana if he could. He only hoped he would be able to when the time came.

“I think it’s time to invite the Walker to play,” the demon said, confusing its current victim. It pulled out Thomas’s phone and called Juliana. “Let’s end this, Hound. I’m at the Den of Iniquity. Come get me if you think you can.” The demon hung up before she even had time to respond.

A sensible woman would call the Agency for help. She would have the building surrounded and come in with a tactical team to destroy him and the demon with him. But his mate was not a sensible woman. She was headstrong and impulsive and entirely too self-sacrificing. If she died trying to save him, he’d never forgive her. Even if she did come back from the grave.

* * *

Michael and Juliana parked down the block from the Den. She called both the vampires and the Agency only to be told by both the bar was clean, that they’d checked it out and no one was there. They also said they weren’t going to waste any resources helping her out. Since the demon said he was there, she was fairly certain they didn’t know what they were talking about. Besides, it was odd that neither the vamps nor the Agency had felt the need to leave anyone here to watch the building. And they were absolutely vehement in their refusal of aid. The whole thing reeked of magic.

Michael looked at her. “This is a horrible idea. You know that right?”

“Yes.” She opened the door. “Just like I’ve known it the past four times you told me.”

He put a hand on her arm. “So let’s come up with a different one.”

“We’ve been through this. All the plans sucked. This one just sucked the least.” Michael didn’t like the plan because she was putting herself at risk. Since it was the plan most likely to keep Thomas alive, however, it was the one they went with.

Ben wasn’t going to like it either since it didn’t involve killing her mate. Michael was going to let her boss in on it in about ten minutes. That was if Catalina didn’t get to him first. The vampires had a plan, a marvelous, eleventh-hour plan they had their lawyers working overtime on to keep the Agency from killing Thomas. All this meant nothing if the demon wasn’t actually here.

“I’ll be fine,” she told Michael, hoping he didn’t pick up on the utter lack of confidence in her voice. She slid her glasses on and headed toward the bar as she fired up her gift. A hot shaft of pain jammed itself through the base of her skull and she was surprised when her nose didn’t start bleeding. When she finished this job she wasn’t using her cursed gift for a week.

She stopped directly across the street from the Den and studied the spell shimmering in the air in front of her. Black mixed with lavender-blue, just like at the crucifixion. Demon magic. She raised a hand to signal Michael so he’d know the demon was there. He pulled away in the car, heading to the Agency to take care of his part.

She took a deep breath and stuck her hand out, touching the spell. The thought that no one else was there, that she should just go away and look somewhere else, anywhere else, and never come back planted itself in her brain. It was so subtle that if she hadn’t seen the magic with her own eyes, she would have thought it her own.

Knowing the spell was there made it possible for her ignore. She stepped through. The moment she breached the barrier, hoarse masculine screams reached her ears. She drew her sword with one hand and her phone with the other.

She called Michael. “He’s not alone.”

“Like he has help?”

Another scream cut through the night. “I’m going to go with no.”

“Was that a scream?”

“Yes.”

“Why is it that your plans always involve screaming and death or destruction?”

“This isn’t part of my plan,” she told him. “I’m not even in the building yet.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Just have a medical team ready to send through once I’ve got it out of here.” She put the phone back in her pocket. She shut down her gift and put her glasses away.

She paused with one hand on the door of the Den and glanced down to make sure the ring she’d slipped on earlier was still in place. Taking a deep breath, she braced herself. She could do this. She had to do this.

She eased the door open and slipped inside. The sour metallic smell of blood hit her the moment she stepped over the threshold. She glanced around the club and grimaced. The bar was a slaughterhouse. Blood spared no surface. Pools of it covered the dance floor, arcs of it covered tables, chairs and walls. Even the six human employees sitting along the far wall had been sprayed. They seemed unaware that she had entered the bar. Either their eyes were closed or they were looking down at their laps trying to ignore the four figures in the middle of the room.

One of the bouncers, whose name escaped her, knelt on one side of the floor. His hands hung limply at his sides as he stared straight ahead at the massacre before him. Words poured from him in a mumble that were probably a prayer to whatever god he worshipped.

Lying across from him on the other side of the floor was a mutilated form. A body that was nothing more than bleeding, raw, exposed muscle. Her stomach protested and she forced herself to swallow the bile. It burned her throat and made her eyes water. The poor bastard was breathing. It had to be Altered to still be alive after torture like that. There were some distinct disadvantages to being harder to kill. She didn’t turn on her gift to see who it was. At the moment, she was better off not knowing.

Tony sat on a chair in the middle of the floor receiving the demon’s attentions. Neither he nor the bouncer were restrained in any way. The demon must have been using their bloodties to Thomas to keep them where he wanted them. It took a long thing blade and sliced a wide strip of flesh from Tony’s chest.

“I’m sorry, Master,” he screamed, a hoarse guttural sound interspersed with sobs. Her heart ached. As much as she wanted to, she didn’t look away. If Tony had to live it, she could watch it. His arms and most of his chest were nothing more than raw open wounds. She wondered how long this had been going on. From the looks of things, the demon had come here immediately after escaping the office building. He had to have if he’d taken the time to carve one strip at a time from the other victim the way he was doing Tony.

“What’s he sorry for?” she asked, making her way down the stairs.

The snarling demon spun to look at her, its face transforming into a smile when it saw her. The smile was worse. Out of place in the carnage. Thomas was fully vamped out with eyes black as pitch and fangs fully extended. Blood dripped from strands of his hair and ran down his face. He was barefoot and every movement left footprints in the crimson pool at his feet which were then slowly filled in by the ever-pooling blood. The front of his shirt and jeans were so soaked in the liquid, it looked like he’d bathed in it. “How nice of you to join us, Hound,” it said in Thomas’s voice. “I was beginning to think I was going to have to call that Spanish whore again and tell her to drag you here.”

The news that Catalina had gotten her intel from the demon directly and she hadn’t bothered to tell them pissed Juliana off, but it didn’t surprise her. Typical vampire bullshit. Thomas probably wouldn’t be so understanding when Juliana told him when this was over, though.

The demon walked over to a nearby table, grabbed a bag of blood, ripped the top off and handed it to Tony. “Drink.” Its voice was heavy with compulsion.

It was keeping Tony fed, making sure he didn’t lose enough blood to fade out. It explained why there was so much of it on the floor. It kept filling him up and he kept leaking it out. The demon kept its eyes locked on hers as it lifted the strip of flesh to its mouth, stuffed it in and then pulled it out slowly, sucking the blood from it. She clenched her jaw, willing herself not to get sick. Not to even show the revulsion she felt.

It slid the strip from its mouth with a slurping sound and tossed it onto a pile in the shadows. What she had dismissed earlier as a pile of rags was now evident as the discarded skin from its victims. Why didn’t Thomas stop this? If he kept the underlings alive at the office building, surely he could keep the demon from doing this. Maybe he was losing the little bit of control he had. She was running out of time.

She tore her eyes away from the gruesome pile and focused once more on the demon inhabiting her mate’s body. “Why is Tony sorry?” she asked again and took another step toward them.

It looked confused for a moment. “Tony?” It looked down. “Oh, you mean him. I’m not really sure. He started apologizing the moment the knife hit his tender flesh.”

She took another step forward as she slid her sword back into its sheath. Even with all the damage the demon had done, she couldn’t use her sword on him. Besides, if she killed Thomas it would just find another host in the room. Both of her hands were needed to implement her plan, anyway.