Taming the Demon (19 page)

It was, Devin thought, as confused as he was. In its way, as battered. What did it take from the blade, to do a major healing? How much of the rising threat did it really feel?

How much of Natalie could it feel?

Nothing,
he thought fiercely at it.
She’s not for you.
Not any part of her.

The back stairs, tight and enclosed, spit them out at the end of the guest wing. The blade hummed in his hand, warm and anticipating.
Hunting.

Well, let it. There wasn’t anyone up here, and maybe it would keep busy. Keep out of his head.

“Devin—”

She’d turned to him again. He grabbed her arm, pushed her up against the textured paint of the wall, footsteps echoing like whispers in this soaring, open hallway and spilling out to fall silent in the high, vaulted ceiling. “Look,” he said. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. Let me
deal
with it. You deal with
you.
”

She jerked her arm away, rubbing it—hurt and offended and not hiding it. “That’s not how this goes,” she told him. “That’s not what we’re about any longer. Don’t you dare pretend otherwise!”

He growled. Nothing else, just growled, jerking away from her. Not failing to see in her eye that she recognized it for the frustrated capitulation that it was.

The blade hummed. He got the distinct impression that the discord pleased it. “Bastard,” he muttered at it.

“Wait here,” Natalie said, pressing him against the wall before they emerged on the mezzanine. “I’ll cut the video feed.”

Compton would figure out that they’d been there. If nothing else, the dead dog...also a dead giveaway. But that didn’t mean they had to leave him a road map.

She slipped off to the office end of the mezzanine...returned within moments. “Now let’s see what’s down here. I’m going to be really disappointed if it’s a red velvet porn room.” Past the workout room, there to where the wide-tiled hall led to the bright solarium.

And the blade snarled to life. Fiery resentment, territorial ferocity...

Fear.

All those things it had fed him from the alleys, multiplied and echoing and slicing sharply through his mind. Raw surprise tore from his throat; he staggered into her.

This time, she didn’t ask. She took him—not supporting, just
touching.
Slender but strong, the shape of her a familiar thing. Just
being.

And the reality that was Natalie sliced right back through the blade’s effects, so Devin sucked in a deep breath. “Took me by surprise,” he said, easing himself straight—testing soreness and even function.

“Pretty much answers the question,” she murmured, looking back over her shoulder—nervous, here where she could no longer explain away their presence.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “There’s something to find, all right. And you aren’t gonna like it, but
this?
” He lifted the knife, ever so slightly. “This thing’s afraid.”

Eloquent expression left no doubt, but she didn’t falter. “Then let it choose which,” she told him, nodding at the doors before them. “We won’t have much time. Even if they don’t find the dog...”

Point taken. Devin gave himself to the blade, if only for an instant. His instinct, his gut reaction. The blade rewarded him, pinging off the farthest door with particular sting.
Threat. Snarl. Resentment and anger.

He nodded at the door in question, knotty alder with a rustic finish, black wrought-iron hardware. “There,” he said, shaking off the taste of it, a quick shudder of his shoulders that he hadn’t meant to give way to.

She took note, as she seemed to notice everything. Quick, sharp...absorbing it without getting stuck on it. With another glance down the hall, she stepped up to it and grasped the handle as if
believing
would be enough to do the trick. “It’s locked,” she said, unable to hide her disappointment. “I’ve got keys in my desk, but I think it’s a safe bet none of them fit this particular lock.”

“Safe enough,” he murmured, regarding the knife most thoughtfully...hefting it slightly.
Nothing.
“Don’t be a baby,” he told it.

Beside him, Natalie laughed under her breath—but nonetheless crowded him slightly, her worry hand pressed against her thigh. “If it’s not cooperating, I can pick—”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” she said. “I can.”

Ah. The demon blade wasn’t about to be shown up by—

Well. By anyone or anything. And so Devin felt the shift of balance in his hand, and knew this particular lock pick needed no skill to guide it. He grinned. “You embarrassed it,” he told her, a stage whisper as he applied the thing, turning it only enough to let the blade find its way.

The lock went
snick;
the knob turned in his hand.

And they were in.

A room from another time, another place—the taste of old wood paneling everywhere, built-in shelves gleaming, the carpet thick beneath their feet and layered not with a Southwest weaving, but a Persian rug of exquisite design and execution.

Other than the books and the black iron fittings and light fixtures, the room was unadorned and lightly furnished. No wall hangings—only a few closed cabinets. No draperies...in fact— “No windows,” Devin murmured. Only a single solar tube skylight, spreading bright light throughout the room, illuminating especially the wing-backed leather chair and the small table beside it.

“No window,” Natalie said. “Ugh.” She stopped herself, shook her head, glanced at the blade. “Still afraid?”

It was the tactical knife again, sullen...withdrawn. He looked at it in surprise. “Sulking.”

She shivered a little. “Somehow I like it better when it’s hungry.”

He gave her a wry look. “Somehow, so do I.”

Chapter 20

N
atalie wasted no time. She walked along the bookshelves, assessing the books—reading the spines as possible, but discovering them old, worn...various first editions, leather bound...cracked and aging. One whole bright section she instantly thought of as the travel section, with colorful trade paperbacks and stout local guides. Familiar country names jumped out at her—the Balkans, Brazil, western Africa...

Places Compton had been. Places in which he’d started his humanitarian projects. It only made sense.

What didn’t make sense was to hide them away.

She glanced at the door, suddenly wary. It was as they’d left it—just barely ajar. But if someone found them here—

“Relax,” Devin said, but his own voice sounded tight. “If Compton finds us—if
anyone
finds us, then maybe it means we just get our answers sooner.”

She would have been more convinced had he not looked so strained—had he not suddenly so obviously shifted to ease his pain.

If he hadn’t shaken his head, frowning, his attention nowhere in this room at all.

“Toes,” she whispered to him, her fingers still trailing over the book spines simply because she hadn’t yet turned away.

“It’s not—” He looked at her, shook his head. “It’s not that. Or...it’s not the same. I don’t know—” He looked down at the blade. Still in hunting mode—she’d learned to recognize that much—but otherwise quiescent. Not showing off, no special effects...lying in his relaxed grip.

She found her fingers lingering at a worn book spine—a spine cracked with use, and not sitting on the shelf as evenly as it might have been.

On anyone else’s shelf, it wouldn’t have meant a thing. On this shelf, in this house...

Natalie knew Sawyer Compton. And here, in this place that was so very private, Compton wouldn’t idly leave so much as a twitch out of place.

The book meant something.

“Hey,” she said, and tugged it from the shelf.

A thin volume, without heft or size. Old and worn, edges rubbed pale. It smelled of more than just leather and conditioner...it smelled of astringent ash, faintly stinging her nose.

For a long moment, he stood just as he’d been— puzzled, his head tipped slightly, his body braced against its pain.

Too much. They’d asked too much of him, too soon.

But he shook it off and came to her as she opened the book—supporting the spine, and letting it open to whatever page it would.

The pages settled to reveal a language that Natalie didn’t recognize—not even an alphabet she recognized. Hebrew? Arabic? Someone’s secret code?

A whispery susurrus crawled through her ears and down along her spine. She stiffened.

Devin raised his brow. “You heard that?”

“Did
you?
”

“I hear things all the time,” he said dryly.

“I heard it,” she admitted. “Just...for a moment. I’m not even sure what it was. Or what
this
is.”

“You know Compton,” he said reasonably. “Does he decode this thing in his head, or does he have notes somewhere?”

“Notes,” she said. “He probably does do it in his head, but he likes to see his work written down. He likes to—”

“Admire it,” Devin said, and grinned—only half a grin, here in Compton’s house and in his most private of rooms, faltering from the night and surrounded by mysteries they hadn’t begun to resolve. But that half a grin—pure Devin. Direct gray gaze so clearly that of the man who had held her the night before.

“I don’t think he looks at it that way,” she said, not bothering to stifle amusement. She set the book on the reading table. “Notes, and within decent reach.”

But a quick look around offered no enlightenment—nor a second, more careful look. “Wait,” Natalie said, and crossed the room to the chair, gingerly settling herself into it.

It felt slightly creepy. Definitely trespassing.

But Natalie smiled, and she reached to the side of the chair, beneath—and she found it. A discreet shelf—not meant to be secret so much as convenient and unobtrusive.

And ohh, were there notes. Taken in Compton’s neat, thoughtful hand, precise and tiny letters marching across the page. Natalie swept her hand across the top page, unable to contain a certain reverence—if only because Compton’s reverence for his subject matter came through.

Devin knelt beside the chair to look over her arm. “What the hell?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.” And she didn’t. For of all the languages here on this first page, none were English.

He reached over her arm, barely touching the page...his fingers whispering over it. “All the same,” he murmured.

“What?” Startled, she looked from the page to his face, found him frowning. And though she could see the pain at the corners of his eyes, otherwise she found only concentration. “How can you read—?”

“What?” he said, just as startled as she, looking away from the text. “I can’t. But look—all the same length, more or less. One language after another.” He stretched over her, the clean scent of him briefly enveloping her; when he settled, it was with the book in hand, opened to the same page as before. There, set in a section of doubly indented text, was a bold block of—

“Is this even printed on a press?” Natalie asked, startled all over again. “Or is this just...completely impossibly neat calligraphy of some sort?” She bent to the book without thinking, sniffing it—and regretting it. “It smells—”

“Hot metal,” Devin murmured, as if the words had come unbidden. “Forged steel.”

Natalie put her hand over the open book. “This makes no sense. None of it.”

“Less sense than
this?
” Devin held up the blade.

“No,” she said, a little alto growl. “Not
less
sense. But that still doesn’t leave it making any sense at all.” She pushed the book aside, returning to Compton’s neat notes—a whole sheaf of them. Devin flipped over the first page, then the second...and stopped.

She instantly saw why.
English.
The paragraph, finally done in English. “He with the blade is cursed,” she read out loud—and her voice strangled to a stop.

For suddenly her life made sense.

Compton knew about the demon blade.

He knew now...and he’d known then. Working through Ajay and his schemes even then, and Natalie so unwittingly tangled up in it all. Leo’s death, part of the scheme—for Ajay had gone there that night expecting to come away with the blade.

What a surprise it must have been when Devin intervened—and then prevailed. They wouldn’t have expected it of any man playing fair, not over the blade.

And then he’d created his sardonic little memorial—there, and the other alleys. He’d manipulated Natalie, taken her in...had it even been her idea, to direct her class load toward those things that would fill out a personal assistant’s skill set? Or had it been—

She remembered now. Just a casual conversation at school one ordinary day. Someone who’d seemed kind and interested and impressed by her. And she’d never thought twice about ulterior motive or manipulation.

“Compton wanted me,” she said, her voice sounding so very far away to her own ears, “because of my connection to that night. I must have been a huge disappointment, as little as I knew. But Ajay...Ajay always thought I knew more about his crew. Ajay always thought I was stepping out on him.”

“The blade,” Devin said, sounding just as strained. “He’s been waiting for this.”

For Devin to feel the touch of the wild road, as his brother had.

For the time to make another try at the blade.

* * *

Devin flipped the book closed. “See what else you can find like this.”

Her eyes went wide, clear blue in the natural light overhead. “You want to
take—
”

“Hell, yes,” Devin said, taking her arm—holding her tightly enough so a flicker of uncertainty crossed her features. “Do you realize what this is? What it
means?
”

“Yes, of course—we just said—”

He cut her off with an impatient shake of his head. “More than that.
Everything
more than that. Natalie, these are
answers.
”

“He’ll know!” she said. “Don’t you get it, Devin? You don’t take what Sawyer Compton
owns.
I may have been blind these past few years, but I saw that much!”

“He already thinks he owns
you,
” Devin said softly, honest words slipping past to widen her eyes even further—first with hurt, then, as she turned away, brows tightening with regret—with acknowledgment.

And that’s when the door slammed closed.

Not much of a slam, not when it was barely unlatched to begin with. But definite. Distinct. Natalie jumped to her feet; Devin was already there, his hand closing around the blade in disbelief.

From the other side of the door, a man’s voice shouted an awkward and unconvincing phrase, harsh nonsensical syllables. And then, more intelligibly—full of relief, as if some particularly difficult duty had just been discharged, he added, “Get comfortable. Mr. Compton wants to talk to you.”

The door locked, metal snicking against metal—and a second latch sliding into place at the very top of the door. Discreet. And Devin hadn’t even noticed it. Hadn’t realized they could be locked in here.

Harsh whispers crawled around the room, barely audible—brushing against his skin, stirring his hair.

Natalie dropped the sheaf of notes onto the chair and turned to him, pale. “Compton—”

“Is a man,” Devin said, his hand twitching as the blade shot out sudden alarm, hot tingles of anger tracing along nerves. “And, as it happens, he is not the boss of me.”

Her smile flickered in response, a wan expression, and he saw it, suddenly—the realization that her carefully hoarded choices hadn’t been choices at all; the understanding that now, she had none left.

“Natalie,” he said, and simply that—until she met his gaze, held it. Until they’d shared, suddenly, a smile. Small and determined on her part, and something more grim, a little more deadly, on his.
Whispers edged with barbed wire, scraping nerves...

And then she frowned, her gaze flickering down to the blade—there where his arm now trembled slightly in thrall to it, the heat building. “It didn’t warn us,” she said, looking back to him with bafflement. “I thought you said—”

He gave the blade a soft snarl, a lifted lip. Defiance, as tendrils of influence crept across his chest, scraping whisper and hot pain combined. “Did you hear the sound of his voice?” he asked, and heard the change in his own voice—the effort of it. “That man was never a threat—the blade never saw him that way. He barely had the nerve to lock that door and make his little chant...whatever the hell—” He strangled down on those words, that thought, losing them for a moment as the traces of fire flared hot across his torso—cursed to feel his eyes roll back and his knees give way at the chair. Cursed again, spitting the word, and climbed to his feet—the knife, still in his grip, left a slashing trail across fine material.

Her hands on his arm, on his back—a gasp of cool reality.

“What?” she asked him.
“What?”

He shook his head, eyes closed—pulling himself back together. “I wasn’t ready for that. Son-of-a-
bitch,
I wasn’t ready for that.” He leaned, for a moment, into her slender strength. Every line of her body touching his, every separate press of each finger. “I don’t know what it— I don’t—” One leg twitched and faltered; he snarled back the blade. Guttural mutters crawled down his neck, along his spine. “Those words. They did something...” He lifted his head, found worried eyes, sharp chin trembling on fear. “He’s coming. But we’re here with his books. With his notes. We can still learn—”

She snatched up the notes, held them unsteadily so he could also see. “He with the blade is cursed. But he with the three, and the three being of two minors and a major, may wield the balance
.
” She frowned. “What does that mean? Minors and major? The strength of the blades?”

He shook his head, fingers digging into the back of the chair, knife resting along the top. “The other languages. You know any of them? If we could get perspective...”

“Not enough Spanish for something like this,” she said. “You?”

“Darlin’,” he said, laughing shortly, “I can barely think in English.”

She made a sound of dismay. “What is it
doing?
”

“The words,” Devin managed. “The words...did something. Woke...something. The blade, it’s...” He looked down at the gleaming metal in his hand with no little wonder, realizing it then. “It’s afraid.”

Natalie took a deep breath, held it for a long moment...looked away and then back again, catching him with the determination of her gaze. “Can you ask it?”

He gasped a curse through half a laugh, and clung to the chair—not wanting to go down—all the way down—in enemy territory. “I’ve spent all this time trying to keep it
out—
”

“I know,” she said, just as determined. “But it’s
afraid,
Devin. Maybe that means it knows what’s going on.”

It
was afraid. But
it
had nothing on Devin, on the hard cold of deep horror at the thought of opening up to the deadly allure of it—at the thought of doing anything but fighting it with everything he could muster. Building walls, holding them.

“I
know,
” Natalie said again. As determined as she was, the fear still reflected in her own eyes, as clearly as a mirror. “I
know.
”

Of course she did.

Because she knew exactly what the blade could do. She’d seen it years ago in the alley; she’d seen his brother’s mad features, his distorted death mask. She’d seen it in the parking lot weeks earlier; she’d seen Devin fighting it ever since—she’d seen it strip his sanity.

And she was trapped in here with him.

With it.