Red Moon Demon (Demon Lord) (12 page)

I stepped to
t
he right,
and
lifted
Sarah
off her feet with a knee to the gut, let
ting
her drop like a brick. I danced away
, glaring at Angie
. “
Last chance, g
et the little bitch under control, or I will.”

Sarah scrambled up to attack me again.

Angie pleaded, “Sarah, please, let’s talk about this, huh?”

I saw a gold necklace around
Sarah’s
throat. It was ancient, reeking of dark magic.
I’d seen
something like I recently. The woman in the red hat back at the hotel, the one I’d thought might be the succubus. It was her!
The small red
jewel
s in the center
of her necklace spun against
each other like gears.
The
evolving design changed the texture of he
r
magic,
its
very scent.
Demon magic? Fey?
I wasn’t sure. I needed to take a closer look.

She lunged at me, one slash, two
…

I gestured with an extended palm. My whole body shuddered, lightning felt like it was roasting my liver as
the necklace
tattoo
along the top of my
collarbone
came to life.
This was the
Dragon’s Roar
;
I was done playing.

Angie stepped
between us, offering me a growl, like I was the one needing to behave. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Sarah was William’s blood. William ruled the pack. Angie was pack. She had no choice, but to side with Sarah.

Unfortunately for Angie, I’d already paid for my magic and couldn’t call it off. A series of concussive waves materialized in the air and engulfed Angie. She was picked up off her feet and slammed backward
by a boom of thunder
.

I winced, pretending sympathy.

Both girls went do
w
n in a tangle
d sprawl
, landing at the dragon girl’s feet. She stared down at them, expressionless, numb, waiting for someone to tell her to do something.

Angie had taken the brunt
in human form
,
not
as a werewolf,
but
was
still
tough
enough
to survive. Sarah struggle
d
to her feet, half dazed.
I
was glad. I
needed
her alive
.

Her necklace clicked into a new combination, changing into a ziggurat shape. A shimmer of light danced around her, and the damage she’d taken sloughed off. She looked fresh enough for a beauty pageant, and still
determined to kill me.

I wa
i
ted until the last second to dodge a
knife
trust and ran afoul of Angie who
scrambled low to the ground, wrapping her arms around my leg, locking on with her blunt human teeth.
In the split-second of distraction,
Sarah cut across
th
e
tats on my forearm
.
All m
y limbs felt leaden
. M
y balance went off keel, as my vision blurred.
Angie let me go, staring up at me, her face a pale blob.

What
…
the hell
…
is going on?
My protective spell… didn’t … do a thing.

“She cut you
,
” Angie said.

“
Tell me about it
.” I dropped to one knee
, feeling blood warming my skin
.
I tried to focus on Sarah, but her necklace continued changing, clawing at my mystic senses. My arm hurt, sending
tremors
of
agony
up my arm
,
to my chest and eyes.
They burned.

I blinked
.

Sarah was gone.
That damn teleporting spell of hers.

Angie
climbed to her feet
. “Whe
re did she go?”

I
gritted my teeth, and
got up despite the
feeling that my joints were melting like candle wax
.
I strained for any sign of Sarah
’s
curious dark magic. Nothing.
The necklace block
ed
me.
Still
,
if I got out into the street fast enough to spot her
..
. No good.
I could
n’t
stay on my feet.
I sagged back to my knees.

Looking at my forearm,
I tried to activate a healing tat. Whatever had been on Sarah
’s
blade was in my wound,
breaking my focus, sapping my force of will. My tats stayed dormant. The
poison wasn’t
letting me heal.

Angie’s voice
sounded distant, as if shouted down a long tunnel. Her tone was fuzzy with
urgency. “Caine, Caine? Can hear me?”

I don’t remember
moving,
but
sky suddenly stretched over me.
I lay on my back with Angie kneeling next to me.
The girl came over as well. The same shocked, expression haunted her face as when she clung to her mom. Her voice came out in a whisper. “Don’t you leave me too.”

My arm felt like it
a piece of meat on a spit
. Beads of sweet trickled down my face.
My chest ached as if I’d spent a lifetime screaming.

Angie said,
“Caine, your arm looks bluish-black. It’s swelling and starting to smell like spoiled meat
.
You need a hospital.”

“No, take me home,” I said.

“But Caine—”

Darkness was swamping my mind. I was loosing consciousness. I knew I only had time for a single threat. I made it a good one. “Fail me in this, and Lauphram will destroy your entire pack.”

I opened my eyes. Angie had put me in the passenger seat of my car. She was trying to start my car and failing. This had her yelling at my baby. I reached out and hit the voice input. “Voice command,” I said. “Override sensors, engine start, GPS function, home.”

The engine started. The inside of the windshield displayed a GPS map showing the way home. The image blurred. My eyes were getting wors
e
. I felt ice and fire as my magic level fluctuated wildly.

Angie sent my vehicle surging out into the street. “I love this car!”

The street lights we’re overly bright, making it hard to keep my eyes open. I swam in and out of consciousness
. I roused at one point to her the little girl muttering a sort of mantra, “Don’t die, don’t die, don’t…” Reaching around the seat, her
small hand
tightly gripped my coat
. Dragon girl seemed to think I’d live as long as her hand was there.
I didn’t move it off my expensive coat in case she was right.

My phone rang, sharpening my focus at one point. I tried to pull it out, but my
arms were
useless.
Angie reached over and pried my phone from my pants, tearing the pocket in her haste.

Sh
e said something, but I couldn’t hear what. I watched her anxious face, as I passed out. Again.

When I reawakened,
my eyes wouldn’t open. I felt my magic, like the coils of a python winding around me. My skin felt flayed where my tats had been inked.

I heard Angie talking. The car was still moving so she must have been on the phone. “Caine got cut by Sarah. No, he’s not healing.

His arm looks terrible. One of his tattoos is cut in half, but it’s not deep. The
w
ound
smells like poison. GPS says ten minutes. Okay…” Angie sounded scared. It must have been her
Alpha
or Old Man on the phone. I really hoped it was not Old Man. He’d be pissed at me for really screwing things up.

We stopped and I was pulled out of the seat.
Her face intense and grave, the little girl climbed out of the back, and watched A
ngie
swing me toward the house.
Being a werewolf, she was strong enough not to break a sweat
carrying me down the walk and up onto the porch
. She kicked in the door.

A jar went through me, kicking up the ache in my skull by several magnitudes. That woke me up even more. “Hey,” I said, “what did my house do to
you?
”
No one came running to see what had happened, so I guessed Leona out was with Old Man. I didn’t have time to wait for them.
“
To my bedroom.
”

“You just don’t give up, do you?” Angie said.

She carried me there and was
about to put me on
the
bed.

“Wait, take me to the mirror,” I said.

“Trust me; you don’t want to see how you look”

“Just do it”

“Last request?”
S
he
said,
“Sure.”

She was right; I didn’t like seeing myself. My arm was oozing pus, swollen with poison. My magic shimmered red and violet, sizzling over my skin, coming out of every part of me. One of my eyes was that of a dragon, my nails were black and long. This was bad; the dragon magic of the tats was straight out
-
of
-
control. I’d never felt this happen before. What the hell was that poison?

Never mind. Focus
.

I put my hand on the mirror’s frame, having her move me left and right. The mirror gate opened. “Just step in,” I said.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. That smells like demon,” Angie said.

“I got cut because you
got
in the way.” I looked at Angie and pointed at the mirror.

She growled. “Fine.”

The code I inputted wasn’t to
another mirror, but to a point in space I
frequently visited
.
Angie and I
came out in front
of Red Fang
’
s Tattoo Shop in the
demon
Underground
.
The little girl came along
, having a death grip on the tail of my coat
.
The gray stone storefronts had neon signs over the doors. The red, green, and violet-black lights made sigils of the shop names in twenty languages that were f
ar older that anything human.

I used the last of my strength pointing. “That door … there!”

THIRTEEN

“
Hey, Red Fang,
look wh
at

the wolf dragged in.”

—
Caine Deathwalker

We walked in
.
Red Fang looked at me
with widening eyes that were clear topaz, lacking irises or pupils. He
stopped cleaning
his tattoo gun
,
and ran o
ver,
grabb
ing
my arm
,
s
niff
ing
it
. He
pried
my eyes wide
open
with his
other hand
.
His
face stretched into a mask of amazement.
“How did you get
dispel
poison in you
,
and over a rune at that
? D
id you go retarded or something
?
”

T
all
, t
hin
, and full of magic, his l
ong white hair
aged
him
. His stony
skin was hard a
s
scales even in human form
. The frequent use of dragon magic
had
t
urn
ed
his
skin,
front and back
,
a vibrant crimson and his sides
blue
-
green
. He could have probably spelled the weird pigmentation away, but
I just think he was
too
lazy
, or simply didn’t care
.

“Good to see you
r
perverted self too
,
” I
whispered, my voice rough and frail
.

“
Lady
Wolf, take him to the back room
.
I’ll call

Lauphram
,
” Red Fang said.
“He’ll be pissed as Hell.”

Angie
hauled me
away;
pausing in the
open door
as the over
powering
sweet-iron stench
of
old
blood
hit our senses.

T
he room
was large and
dragon runes
scurried down
the walls,
writhed across
the floor and
clung to
the ceiling
. T
he stone
altar
in the center was where I
usually bled, taking on tat
s
. M
y blood stained
every part of the slab
; w
e were old friends.

“Put me
there
,
” I told Angie
.

“What? That looks like a
sacrificial
altar.”

I smiled. “It kind of is.”

“Damn!” she said.

Angie
carried me over and put me down. S
he looked back
for
Red Fang
. W
e could hear him outside, yelling
on the phone
. I heard my name a few times, as well as “moron”, “idiot”, and the phrase “too stupid to live”. The stone was cold and hard under me. Angie’s hands withdrew. I missed them at once. Above me, my gaze traced the dragon runes, laboriously deciphering the grimoire until it
dim
med
out
,
and
my thoughts sank
into velvet darkness
.

*
*
*

T
he
gray
cliff was
high
with a steep slop
e
, loose shale, and few handholds. I
t had almost killed me ge
tting
up here
.
Old Man sat
at
the edge,
feet dangling over the drop. B
lood discolored his
front
teeth as he tore at fresh—raw—venison from a deer I’d killed.
Hauling the butchered meat on my back hadn’t made the climb any easier.

He said,
“You’ve done well
this
time out.
”

I was ten and he
’d
left me in a forest for three months with
only the
m
o
st basic supplie
s
so this was a
compliment.
I
took a seat next to him

H
e handed me a
well-gnawed bone
.
I was surprised he hadn’t cracked it and sucked out the marrow.

“
I’ve decided to let you get inked…,
”
he said.

My first rune
tattoo
,
a
proud momen
t.
Red Fang had
been
ready for
years
,
I
’d
just need
ed
to get Old
M
an
’s nod
.

He
stood;
feet planted midair, and brushed himself off, as if he’d climbed up here instead of using demon magic. Abruptly, he pointed to something down below.

My heart glowing with anticipation, I leaned out to look.

H
e
jerk
ed me o
f
f the
edge
.
Gravity did the rest.
I
skidd
ed
down,
heels digging into the surface,
rocks gouging my ass and legs.

“
…I
f you live
,” he added.

Darkness washed in, smothering the scene, swallowing me for a time, then another dream formed…

Gray hovered next to me. The half angel looked like he needed a shave. His blind white eyes had a bit of a glow to them. He wore jeans, a polo shirt, and his usual Raider’s jacket.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Prophetic dream,” he said.

“So I ought to pay attention.”

“I would, if I weren’t blind.”

I looked down from the enveloping darkness, my words bounced around my head. Like being in a cave…

There were additional murmurs, sibilant, heated words expanding and echoing back from unseen walls. Dreaming, I floated in darkness, a disembodied spirit. Below me, a meeting

was in progress. A table stretched like a runway. The dark wood shone; glossy, catching highlights from two antiques
T
iffany lamps, one at either end. There was no paperwork, no files, such as might be expected in a corporate boardroom. Water pitchers and a coffee mess waited on a trolley off to the side. I counted a dozen chairs, all occupied, mostly by men, but a few women were present as well. From this angle, I had an excellent view.

Ah, cleavage! Gotta love it.

The woman with the largest breasts made them jiggle by slapping the table with both palms. Her nails were bright red. “This is ridiculous! Obviously, I should go first.”

A man in a midnight blue long coat, with spiky yellow hair, leaned forward against the table, staring straight across at her. “There’s nothing obvious about it to me. This family has long retained my services for matters just like this. You wouldn’t even be at this meeting if you weren’t sleeping with—”

The gray haired man at the head of the table roared, “Enough! Such bickering has no beauty to it. All of us need to test the upstart so we will know if he is worthy of the blood he carries, and we will do it in an orderly fashion as always.”

“Rock, paper, and succors?” the woman asked.

“No,” the boss stabbed the table in front of him with a jeweled dagger. “We will gut a chicken and read the
haruspicy
.”

The spiky-haired man stood, pushing his chair away from the table. “I’ll go get the chicken.”

* * *

My eyelids felt
too
heavy
to lift. I
hear
d
the tattoo gun humming
. I
t hurt
worse
th
a
n normal
. My right arm felt like it was melting in magma
.
S
omeone scream
ed. The voice was familiar.

Oh, me
.

I stopped and
forced my eyes open a crack.
Red-Fang h
e
ld my arm
,
trying to fix the tattoo to stop the feedback loop
of magic gone bad
. The swelling and discoloration was gone. T
he poison
had been drained
from my arm
. From the m
arks, I think he’d used leeches; t
alk about Old School.
Of course the leeches hadn’t gotten all the poison out of my system. The crushing weakness I felt testified to that.

Red-Fang
’s f
ocus
made my arm his entire universe. I don’t think he realized I was even awake. The fresh ink he infus
ed
me with had a dark red hue. It changed into various colors
as it hit my skin
. H
e
’
d finished half
the repair. M
agic
trickl
ed into my veins and arteries.

Red-Fang p
aus
ed and looked into my eyes
.
H
e forced
my
right
eye to open wide
, and then
check
ed
the
pulse
i
n my neck
.
I fel
t
the warm slither of
magic
al residue tingle across my face. H
e
’d used a
helluva
lot of magic to
still
have that much lingering on his hand
. H
e
didn’t
say a word, just went back to work
.

I heard the creak of a chair on my left. A
wet cloth
appeared to
wip
e
away my sweat
. As the cloth withdrew, I rolled my head to see
who
else was here.

It was
Angie, looking half as sick as I felt. Her face was tight, pale,
her eyes were
were
wolf yellow. Her red hair was a mess, and her shirt had my blood on it.
A small table
crowded
her.
Several folded
wash
cloths
lay
there
beside
a basin
of
cool water. I saw an empty, murky purple bottle with a black and gold label.
The label had the picture of a unicorn beetle on it, antlers raised in defiance.

T
hat’s when
a
vile
taste
finally registered
in
my mouth
.

W
hat the hell
have they been pouring into me?

Angie put the wet cloth
back in the basin. Her hand shook. Looking tired, she laced both hands together.
“
How long have you been here
?” I asked.

She looked at me and then
down
at her own shirt
,
brush
ing
at various stains.
“
A while.
”

I grunted at her non-answer.
“
Do I want to know what
you guys ma
d
e me drink?”

Red-Fang said,
“
A
potion to counter the poison
. I
t will take a w
h
ile to do its job, but you won
’
t die
.
”

I rolled my face toward him, “Not ever?”

“Not from this latest disaster anyway,” he said.
“By the way, what’s with the dragon child? You adopted?”

“No family,” I said, “murdered. I was hoping you’d take her in.”

He nodded. “What’s another mouth to
feed?
I’ll have my mate come down and pick her up.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Red Fang looked at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher. “We dragons take care of our own.”

I tried to stay awake
,
but was to
o
weak
.
Slowly
pass
ing
out, my mind
reviewed what had happened.
I
’d
never had a poison hit me like this
. H
ow
could I have l
et a little girl cut me
?
H
ow
had
she
—
and that
freakish
amulet of hers
—
pulled this off? I had the feeling that when we met again, she’d be dying to tell me.