The Demon Abraxas (31 page)

“Ana’s back. I’m giving her control again,” Abraxas said and then his presence under her skin flared and pulled back.

“Hell of a time,” Lily said, rolling off her to lay in the crook of her arm. “We were just going for round two.”

Ana found herself looking into Lily’s face from a few inches away. She held still, refusing to pull away suddenly. That would be a crappy way to end their time together and the skin contact felt good. It was hard to argue with the pleasure of bare, soft skin along hers.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “But I just saw Drake at Johnson’s house and he saw me.” She pushed up on her elbows and realized she was not only naked, but covered in a thin sheen of sweat. She shivered and grinned. Her body felt satisfied with the lingering relaxation of a good orgasm humming along her nerves. She almost regretted that she hadn’t been there for it, but that would be way too awkward. She didn’t like Lily that way and now at least she got a few aftereffects without having to do all the work. The pain of her ache for Sabel was slaked for the moment.

Lily pulled the throw blanket off the couch and handed it to her, seeming untouched by the chill in the air. Her dark hair hung in thick tangled threads. Oddly, her feet matched her body better when she was naked, the transition from scales to skin looking natural, and the solid muscles of her calves matched in density by the muscles of her thighs and hips. She had great hips, broad but strong and Ana immediately wanted to lose ten pounds.

“Can he follow her back here?” Lily asked Abraxas.

“Yes,” Abraxas said. He leaned forward with Ana’s lips and kissed Lily’s forehead. “Thank you,” he said softly, the end to another conversation.

“I know,” Lily said, laughing. “You haven’t done that in about a thousand years. It’s been a few for me too. Ana, we both really appreciate—”

“Don’t mention it,” Ana said. “And I mean do
not
mention it.”

Lily laughed and pushed off the floor. “We’d better get downstairs, I’d rather face him in the bookstore.”

Ana untangled herself from the blanket and started gathering the articles of clothing she could find. Her pants were on the floor by the couch and her shirt draped over the coffee table. She had to hunt around for a few minutes before she found her bra a few feet behind the couch. She wondered what it was like for Abraxas. He seemed like a pretty manly man the few times she’d seen him pull together an image of a body. Was it humbling for him to have sex in the body of a woman?

She also wondered about Lily’s parents. Lily had told her that her mother had been the demon parent; apparently their bloodline was matriarchal. She couldn’t imagine what a human woman would think of a child with clawed feet, though if she’d slept with a demon she might have expected it. But then what would it be like for a half-human child to be raised by a demon? Was that part of the attraction to Abraxas for Lily? It certainly explained why she wasn’t freaked out by the body swapping that had her effectively sleeping with Ana.

Ana wasn’t so sure she could say the same for herself. Sometimes she looked forward to Abraxas having a body of his own, but she also felt a thrill at the thought of the whole experience. It was all hopelessly confusing and there were more pressing matters to figure out right at this moment.

The three of them descended the stairs to the back of the shop, and then Ana and Abraxas waited in the back area while Lily went to check on Jason, the kid who was minding the front of the store. The bells jingled as a customer came through the front door.

Should we leave
? Ana asked.
He won’t hurt Jason at the counter, will he
?

I don’t know
, came the reply.

We don’t have much to fight him with, do we?

Less and more than you think. Very little in this world can resist a pure heart.

That would be great if we were in possession of a pure heart,
Ana shot back.
I don’t think either one of us is high on the pure scale at the moment.

Don’t judge me on the values of your civilization,
he said, laughing.
Some of your morals are more outdated than I am.

While they talked, the door to the back opened and Jason came in, eyebrows knit with confusion. “Lily said she needs her Modern Demonology book,” he said.

“That’s at my house,” Ana said. “Oh—” Lily knew she’d taken the book home. She wasn’t asking for it, she was asking for Ana and Abraxas.

“Shall we?” Ana asked.

“Sure,” Jason said.

“I’m not talking to you,” she told him.

Let’s go have another look at him,
Abraxas said
.

Tell me you have an escape plan in case this goes horribly wrong,
Ana said, remembering not to talk aloud as she walked around the shelves to the front of the store. She could see part of a tall back from between the aisles as she walked up toward the front. He wore a long, black cashmere coat, perfectly tailored for his size. His brown hair curled just past the collar, and looked oddly similar to the first time she’d seen him in his other body, just after he kidnapped her.

* * *

The girl’s dark brown eyes held fear as Drake looked into them, but not really as much as he’d hoped for, and utterly absent was the desire that would have been better yet. Ah well, he’d have to kill her, he supposed, though it would be a terrible shame with her body already strengthened and her blood singing to him. Equally interesting was this Lily Cordoba the crossbreed, she must be the ally who’d alerted the city’s protectors that he was in their area. He couldn’t retaliate against her directly without making more trouble for himself than he wanted, but he’d know to avoid her attention in the future and look for ways to exert control over her. He wasn’t a particularly vengeful man when it came down to it, he had so many desires that they took all his energy. But he did like a smooth path to the objects of his desires and he’d do what he could to ensure she wasn’t going to be an obstacle.

“Ana, we meet again,” he said. “And your guest…who is he? I believe he has caused us both some trouble. Perhaps we can put an end to this simply.”

That he still couldn’t see the creature in her only made him want it all the more. Small demons could never hide themselves from him like that.

“What did you have in mind?” Ana asked.

“Certainly you don’t intend to keep your guest forever,” Drake suggested. “You have a little power and you’re playing with us because of the unfortunate death of your friend. Will you tell me what would make that right for you?”

“I want to know what really happened first,” she said. “Who killed Helen?”

He tilted his head toward her. “No one did, dear girl. Helen volunteered for the ritual. She believed she could pass through the door we opened and go into death with her fully awake consciousness and not the confusion and loss of sense most people experience.”

“What went wrong?”

“Helen went back on the bargain. She blocked the door herself but she was already dead on this side.”

“She didn’t want to let your demon through,” Ana said. “Sounds like a real charmer.”

He laughed. “If only you could meet her. She would enjoy knowing you.”

“I want the men in the circle who arranged this brought to trial and convicted for Helen’s murder anyway,” Ana said. “You set her up. And I want you…Lily, are there demon courts or something?”

The little, dark woman shook her head. “Not like that. They’ll throw him out of the city, which they’d probably do anyway.”

“Then you should go to trial as a human too and to jail.”

She made him smile. Inventive, vicious, vindictive as she was, maybe he could find a way to keep her with him after this was all over. “So I can be shanked in the yard and come back in another body?” he asked.

“I’m sure that doesn’t feel good,” she said.

“And if I agree to all these extravagant terms of yours, you let me take your guest as my own? Who is it you have?”

She paused, eyes unfocused, paying attention inward, probably talking to it. “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” she said at last.

“My name is my own,” he said. “But I’ll give you my title. I am the Ashmedai.”

A dark voice whispered through Ana’s lips. “For how long?”

So she’d already given this one access to use her body.

Drake raised a finger and shook it as if scolding a child. “Show me yours.”

A cloud came out of Ana’s body and inside of it the colors of flame formed the shape of a man, tall and slender, muscled like the warriors of old with long, lean strength, and in the place of feet, serpents of fire.

“The Abraxas,” Drake said. “The old one who died. How did you return?”

This was so much better than he’d dared wish. Not a mere thousand-year-old princeling, but the former Abraxas, before he’d been tamed by the Gnostics. He had been killed in the desert over nine hundred years ago. Although Drake had risen to power quickly and had the added benefits of his office, Drake as the Ashmedai was just over eight hundred years old; if he could bind this power to him while the creature was weak, he could rule human countries and demon princedoms.

“Helen opened the door for me,” Abraxas told him.

“So you could fall into this girl and do what…go shopping? Come with me and we will both gain in power.”

“No, it is not for you,” he said and sank down again into the body of the girl. Was that all he could sustain? Was he really that weakened? If that was the case, he was a ripe peach nearly falling into Drake’s hand. And if he would not come willingly, Drake had an alternative offer he could make. Jacob was right to point out the weak link in the situation was Ana’s brother Gunnar who had been trying to watch over her, never realizing the danger that put him in.

He raised a hand dismissively. “Stay out of my business and I will stay out of yours. If you meddle, I will send you back from where you came. Don’t doubt that I can do it.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Abraxas said from the girl’s mouth.

Let them wonder about that threat, empty as it was. Let them wonder about anything except his real next move. He turned on his heel and stalked out, though he was elated rather than angry. First to call in the group of men whose power and ritual would help extract Abraxas and then pick up the brother.

* * *

Sabel got a call from Gabriel Leonard in the evening, giving her an address of a warehouse where she was to meet with the other summoners in an hour and practice their ritual again. His voice held a high note of excitement and that worried her. He seemed to think that soon they would have Ana in hand and be able to perform this ritual. She thought about calling Ana, but she wanted more information beyond “you’re in danger,” which they already knew.

Minutes later, Johnson called her. “It’s time for that favor,” he said. He gave her an address of a coffee shop three blocks from the warehouse and asked her to meet him there. This worried Sabel more than some off-the-beaten-path abandoned warehouse. To his knowledge, she only knew him as the nebulous “Johnson.” What could it mean that he was willing to show her his face?

At least there would be people around.

When she arrived, she scanned the place for men sitting alone. She’d met Johnson once in person without a hood and she mostly remembered what he looked like, but she had to pretend she’d never seen his face or he would realize that she knew who he was.

A man with sandy hair raised his hand and beckoned to her. She went to his table. “Can I get you anything?” he asked as if this was a normal meeting between two people in a coffee shop.

“A cup of tea would be nice. White, if they have it, or green.”

He got up to order and she looked at his empty chair. His briefcase leaned against the side of it, but there were no other obvious clues about this meeting. When he returned with the tea, she hazarded an opening.

“We’ve met before,” she said. “You work for a company where I did some trainings, I think.”

He nodded, “Roth Software.”

“And I saw you in the news.”

“Unfortunate.”

“I gather you didn’t ask me here on a date,” Sabel said. If he didn’t know she was a lesbian, that would confirm that he hadn’t connected her with Ana.

Johnson smiled. “Perhaps another time. You haven’t dealt with demons before now?” he asked.

Sabel shook her head.

“There is one essential lesson about them: they will always turn on you sooner or later.”

Her heart sped up and she sipped the warm tea in an effort to cover any change in her breathing rate. Did that apply to Abraxas too?

“You learn,” he went on. “To take countermeasures. Not just with the demons, but with the humans as well. Tonight you’ll meet Simon Drake, a demon in a human body. I need your help with him because you’re new and don’t have strong ties to him, and you need to know that it’s better to be on my side than his. He doesn’t understand as much about the modern world as he thinks he does.”

“I thought you were on the same side.”

“Demons are never on the same side as their humans. Not for long.”

“If he’s a demon, how does he have a human body?” she asked. To keep up the appearance that she knew nothing about Drake, she figured she should ask a question and she was curious.

“He finds empty bodies and inhabits them,” Johnson said. “Or half-empty bodies and pushes the human spirit out.”

“That’s just creepy,” Sabel told him and she meant it. Could that happen to Ana someday? If Abraxas stayed in her long enough, could she lose her hold on her own body?

“We need to take him down today. After the ritual, we’ll be able to take possession of this other demon, but only if Drake is out of the way.”

Sabel made herself smile all the way up to her eyes, forcing the muscles around them to crinkle so that her gesture read as genuine. “We get to do the real ritual?”

“We’ll have the girl by tonight,” he said and her heart dropped like cement in an icy lake. She kept the smile up. He had to mean Ana, which meant that they had some other plan to grab her. She needed to warn her, but couldn’t do anything that would tip off Johnson. If they did grab Ana, the best place for Sabel to be was inside the circle of summoners with her.