Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5)

C
opyright
© 2015 by Pippa DaCosta

www.pippadacosta.com

‘Ties That Bind’

#5 The Veil Series

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictions and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

V
ersion 1.0 April
2015

T
o get
the most from the series, and #5 Ties That Bind, I recommend reading the Veil Series prequel,
Wings Of Hope
. You can download the prequel from
Amazon
, or sign up to my mailing list here:
http://eepurl.com/O5Aq5
to get your
FREE
e-copy. Reading the prequel is not essential, but it will add depth to the final book and the series as a whole.

Muse is ready to bring the fight to the demons. Are you?

“
A
manat
.”
My father’s voice branded my thoughts.

Pressed against my father’s chest with his arms locked around me, the burned-rubber smell of the netherworld lacing my throat, I observed the scene in the mirror as though watching it happen to someone else—someone a lot braver than me. My smile, crooked as it was, masked the scream inside my head. My eyes—intense, dark, fire-touched—belied the terror racing through my veins. I’d have never thought it possible, but I looked at my father’s reflection, at the Crimson Lord, with his ruby-red hairless skin and pools of sulfuric yellow for eyes, and I held my head high.

Ryder’s bellows barely penetrated Asmodeus’s mental embrace. The motel’s bathroom door muffled Ryder’s shouts. Or was it the fog smothering my thoughts? The door rattled from a kick, and distantly, a part of me prayed Ryder didn’t succeed in breaking it down, for his own sake.

The demon with enough influence to have Akil working for him, observed me in such a way that I couldn’t decipher a thing from his blank expression. White-hot piercings rode the edges of his wings. He smelled of burning flesh, of acrid decay, of Hell. Not so long ago, I’d have fought and probably gotten myself killed. But I was different now. As the Mother of Destruction, I stood tall, calm. I breathed him in. His scent. His touch. We were kin. He couldn’t know how my every instinct screamed at me to fight.

Asmodeus bowed his huge head, burying his elongated muzzle in my hair. He inhaled with a shudder. Trapped in his arms, I turned my head toward him and brushed my cheek against his touch. This was the demon part of me, and I was grateful for it. A contented purr resonated through my human body. I stretched my element outward, seeking the touch of his, and embraced the intangible tendrils, coiling his element around mine. His crushing embrace tightened. His lips peeled back. Strings of saliva dripped from rows of jagged triangular teeth. I turned my head away, exposing my throat, even as horror beat at my thoughts. If I gave any indication that I feared him, if the tiniest glimmer of fear slipped through my mask, I had no doubt he’d crush me or tear my throat out. His cool, slippery lips touched my flesh first. His teeth found purchase.

Ryder kicked the door in. The sudden sound wrenched me from the nightmare and dumped me back into reality. Asmodeus vanished, but the effects of his presence hadn’t. Nausea barreled over me. I fell forward over the sink and retched, thoughts swirling, body detached. I’d have collapsed if Ryder hadn’t caught me.

“What the fuck?” He staggered under my dead weight and fell against the wall. “Shit, Muse…”

A breathless sob burst from my lips. Just one. I sucked the rest back and swallowed them. “He was here.”

“Who?”

We staggered and stumbled out of the bathroom, Ryder half carrying me, half shoving me, until we reached the end of the nearest bed, where he lowered me down.

“You can smell him… Taste him… He’s everywhere.”

Ryder glanced back at the empty bathroom then arched a dark eyebrow at me. “All I smell is mildew.”

I tried to match the vacant bathroom with the demon-filled vision of a few moments before.
No, no,
this isn’t right.
“Ryder, the burns, the fire…look.” Feverish shivers flushed hot and cold across my skin.

“I am looking.” He shrugged. “What the fuck am I s’posed to be seeing?”

No fire. No burns. No smell. “I saw him.” I raked my hands through my hair, hoping to hide how they shook. “He was here.” Ryder gave me
the look
he reserved for enforcers fresh out of training.
“My father,” I growled. His eyes widened, and he bolted for the bathroom. But even I could see—now that my senses were coming back to me—no evidence remained to support my revelation. Ryder turned and raked a hand through his messy chestnut hair. He didn’t sigh, but he might as well have done. “He was there. I don’t care what it looks like. He was right there, Ryder.”

He crouched in front of me, eye to eye. “Okay, he was there. What did he say?”

“If you don’t believe me, why’d you kick the door in?”

“You’d been in there almost twenty minutes. Why didn’t you answer me? I thought...” He flicked his old-soul eyes away. He thought I’d hurt myself. Jesus, was I projecting suicidal vibes?

“Twenty minutes? I…” If my father had been there, the room would bear burn marks. I could see from my hunched position that everything looked fine—as filthy as it had been when we’d arrived but no fire damage. “He said
Amanat
…” I whispered, remembering how he’d held me, how he’d been about to bite me, and how I’d have let him.

“I’m-a-what?”

“Amanat. It means
in trust
or something
kept safe.
”

Ryder brushed a thumb across his lips. “And you know that, how?”

“I don’t know, I... I’ve maybe heard it before...” More like I just knew it in my gut, in my DNA. Like it was a part of me. I had no intention of telling Ryder that, given how he already thought me crazy.

“Y’know what? I reckon you’re burned out. You don’t sleep. You hardly eat. All you do is kill demons, which I’d usually get on board with, but not when it’s covering up a whole heap of fucked up.”

My default glower came easily. “You know why I don’t sleep. And I don’t need to eat so much. My demon…” She wasn’t my demon anymore. She was me. “I’m…different.”

Ryder stood and dragged a hand across his jaw, looking down at me like I was the victim. “You’ve gotta rest.”

I gave him the middle-finger salute. “I’m not going fruit loop. Okay? Before you start with the,
you’ve been through so much
BS, I’m fine. I survived my owner, survived the netherworld, survived going nuclear. If the whole goddamn world ends, I’ll survive like a cockroach. It’s the only damn thing I’m good at, so quit with the sad eyes. They don’t suit you.”

“You saw Akil get picked apart by Dawn.” I shot him a snarl, and he raised his hands. “You’re telling me Asmodeus was right there” —he pointed at the bathroom— “with you, but I ain’t seein’ it. What you’re experiencing, Muse, it’s called exhaustion. You’re emotionally and physically fucked. I’ve seen it before. Hell, I’ve experienced it. Call it what you want. PTSD, maybe.”

“Fine, whatever you say, Lieutenant.” I saluted. “Just get off my back, already.” I spied Stefan’s coat in the bathroom and wondered if I could retrieve it without falling on my ass in front of Ryder. I needed that coat, needed its familiar touch and fresh, wintery scent.

“I gotta go back to Boston, Muse. Adam has my kid... I
have
to go back. You should come. I aint leavin’ you like this.”

I shook my head and rubbed at my eyes, scratching out the abrasive burn left from witnessing a demon with human eyes. “There’s nothing for me there.” My gaze fell to the coat once more.

Ryder noticed what I was staring at and clearly didn’t believe me. “This ain’t over. When the netherworld quits and normal service resumes, people like you an’ me get to go home, maybe fuck off to Vegas, but not yet… I don’t wanna lose you, Muse. Okay? Come back with me, so I can keep an eye on you.”

“You mean hand me back to Adam?” When Ryder scowled, demons everywhere ran for the hills. He scowled, and I beamed right back at him. “Go. You’re right. It was a hallucination or something. I’ll sleep it off. Order take-out. Whatever. Just go. I don’t need you.”

“Fuck that.” He yanked on a chair, spun it around so its back faced me, and straddled it. “I don’t do pep talks, Muse. But I do give it to you straight. You’re walking a fine line. You’re more demon now than I’ve ever seen you. There ain’t no way I’m walking out that door without you. I’d never fuckin’ forgive myself if something happened.”

I locked my gaze on him. “I’ve never been more in control.”

“And that scares the shit out of me. It should scare the shit out of you too.”

Maybe he was right. What would I do on my own? Stew over Akil’s death, wonder if Stefan had turned dark, worry over whether Lacy and Rosa had escaped the Boston battlefront, wonder if Adam was, even now, manipulating Dawn? Coleman. Jenna. Jonesy. My home. Did I really want to abandon everything I’d worked so hard to protect? What if I saw Asmodeus again? What if he wasn’t real? What if he was? Did I really want to be on my own? No. I needed help. I couldn’t do this alone anymore.

“Okay,” I said. His scowl deepened, not trusting my words. “Okay, Ryder. I’ll go back.”

W
e were back
in Boston by morning. Much of the city had survived the battle, and in the areas where the netherworld still throbbed like an open wound, the authorities had cordoned off fallout zones. My apartment building remained relatively untouched, and my apartment looked exactly as it did the night I’d left it. The protective anti-elemental symbols still lay discarded on the floor where Akil had torn them from the walls right before ripping my ex-owner from my soul. Glass crunched under my boots. I could almost hear him, feel him close… He’d got his wish and bound me to him by soul-lock, or an infusion, as he called it. His heat burned within me as I drifted around my ruined living room, picking up broken pieces of frame only to drop them again. My chest throbbed, the loss heavy.

“You shouldn’t be here. The Institute will be all over this place.” Ryder noticed my skewed grin and frowned. “Don’t underestimate Adam.”

“I won’t, but I guarantee he will underestimate me.” I wasn’t afraid of the Institute, and I certainly wasn’t going to let the threat of their presence dictate my actions. “If he wants to send whatever is left of his people to come get me, let him try.” I wouldn’t be replacing the protective symbols. I was as demon now as I was human.

Ryder sighed and shook his head. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“What are they going to do? Wave guns in my face? Their bullets will melt before they’ve made it halfway across the room.”

“They’ll trank you when you’re not looking, wait until you drop, then pump you full of PC-Thirty-Four.” He arched a brow. “It’s what I’d do.”

“Duly noted.” The best of friends are the ones who know you’re a mass murderer, and they still stick around—with a back-up plan.

Boots hammered against the landing, and Lacy stumbled in beside Ryder. She took one look at Ryder, assessed him as a friendly, loped across the room, and threw her arms around me. I froze.

“Oh my God. Charlie, you’re okay.”

Was she crying? Oh, hell. I closed my arms around her and patted her uselessly on the shoulder. “I er…” Clearing the hitch from my throat, I tried again. “I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch.”

“They said all the demons died. I knew you’d be there with Akil… When the bomb went off, I thought… I thought…”

That so-called bomb had been me. I’d killed an army of demons in one gloriously devastating moment. It wasn’t a righteous act. It wasn’t even a conscious one. I’d reacted. I’d gone nuclear the moment I’d realized Akil was gone. He’d wanted me to be his weapon. He’d tried to mold me, shape me, twist my future for his gain. He hadn’t known it would be his final selfless act to save me that would tip me over the edge. Or maybe he had. I would never know.

“Is Akil…”

I didn’t hear her question, not really. Hearing her speak his name, while thoughts of his sacrifice filled my head, brought it all back, and the tears came too quickly for me to fight them. I didn’t make a sound as those tears wet my cheeks, but I pulled Lacy closer. Head bowed, wrapped in the arms of my friend, I couldn’t speak to tell her what happened, couldn’t even form the words to explain why I suddenly didn’t want to let her go. At some point, Ryder closed the door and was gone, leaving Lacy and me, sobbing quietly in a heap on my living room floor, surrounded by broken bits of my old life.

W
e set
about cleaning up my apartment. Lacy explained she’d been looking after Jonesy, but hadn’t been able to muster the courage to clear up my place. She’d hoped we’d survived, me and Akil. Hoped we’d return.

“What about Stefan?” She brushed broken glass into a dustpan. She knew all about my brief escapades with Stefan and the trouble it had gotten me. I had to wonder, if he hadn’t walked into my workshop all those months ago, whether any of this would have happened. The princes would have come anyway. Akil had said it was inevitable. But maybe without Stefan blowing my workshop to smithereens, thereby starting a chain reaction of self-discovery, I wouldn’t have been ready for them. Following that train of thought, I remembered Akil had been the one to ‘hire’ Stefan to test me. Akil—that SOB—knew everything and always had.

“Stefan, I think he’s okay. I don’t really know.” I beat the couch cushions with the flat of my hand, sending clouds of dust skyward. “I think he survived. He was doing better, but during the battle he stepped in and got a massive dose of Dawn… I’ve heard some things.”

She straightened and puffed her short, pixie-cut hair off her forehead. “You mean about the ice-demon in Boston?”

“You’ve heard too?”

“A bit.” She wandered from the living room into my kitchen area. “The press paint all demons in a bad light after what happened, y’know. I wondered if it was him. But there’s more than one crazy-ass ice-demon, right?” Her Boston accent tilted toward hope.

“I guess.” My gaze flicked to the coat draped over the couch. Tattered and torn, burned in places, it had once been a vibrant red-leather, but now it had discolored to blood red, nearly black. It was a wonder the thing had survived at all.

She dumped her dustpan debris in the trash. “If he’s like you, he’ll be alright.”

I almost laughed. Was I alright?

Jonesy sauntered in, tail held high, nose turned up, blatantly unaffected by my return. I scooped him up and buried my face in his fur, relishing his feline purrs. It did feel good to be back, even if there were ghosts everywhere I looked.

“Will it end?”

I turned toward Lacy. “The demons?”

“Yeah.” She chewed on her lip and busied herself by sweeping a cloth over the kitchen counter. “Or is it too late?”

“It’s never too late.” I set Jonesy down. “If the veil can weaken, then it can strengthen too. I just need to find a way to reverse all of this, to hold the netherworld back for good.”

“Any ideas?”

“Maybe.” I dropped into the couch and sighed out a heavy breath. It hurt—being back. Not physically. I’d be fine as long as I didn’t stop to dwell on the bad stuff. Everything would be fine. “Akil said when the king and queen reigned in the netherworld, that things were…better. They maintained balance. Then the queen tried to kill the king, and the princes killed the queen. That’s when it all went to hell. Maybe there’s a way to get that balance back.”

She gaped. “Hell has a king and queen?”

I’d forgotten it wasn’t common knowledge. “A king, yeah.” Jerry. Or whatever his proper name was. Something archaic and terrifying, probably. I preferred him as Jerry the veterinarian, savior to all pedigrees everywhere, demon and animal.

“Do they have crowns?” Of all the things Lacy could ask, that was not the question I expected.

“What?” I smiled. “No. I don’t think so. If they did, the crowns would probably be made out of half-blood bones.”

She leaned on the kitchen countertop. “So what then? The king needs a queen?”

The child’s nursery rhyme played in my head.
The farmer wants a wife, the farmer wants a wife…
“I don’t know. Someone needs to find out.” Yeah, I knew the look she gave me. I’d been thinking the same. Who else could strike up a conversation with the King of Hell if it wasn’t lil’ ol’ me?

“I know.” I answered her unasked question. “I’m on it.” Sort of. I’d been thinking about it while killing demons, but it would mean summoning the King of Hell, and that had to be right up there on the list of ways to get oneself killed.

“He’s really gone, huh?”

I didn’t need to ask who. She’d had a crush on Akil, and before the world went to hell, she’d chaired his online fan club. He’d once autographed her breast in that archaic swirling handwriting of his. “Not all of him. When we completed the soul-lock, a part of him got tied up inside me. When Dawn attacked… When he died, his essence—or whatever it is that makes us who we are—stayed buried inside me. In a way, he sorta lives…in me. Like my owner did.” I felt Akil, even then: a comforting, radiating, warmth. If I closed my eyes, I’d feel him close, almost hear him whispering. It was why I didn’t sleep. Not that I couldn’t, but that I didn’t want to wake-up.

“It just seems…wrong.” Lacy sighed and bowed her head. “Isn’t chaos like, immortal? It’s always here. Everywhere. Chaos doesn’t change, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, isn’t—I mean, wasn’t he chaos fire? Can’t you just say a few magic words, wave a wand, and bring him back like?”

“Abracadabra?” If only it was possible. “Dawn—the girl who killed him—she
is
chaos. She tore him apart. Chaos doesn’t change, but it can destroy itself.” A memory bubbled up, a little flicker, a few words… I frowned, reaching for it with my thoughts. Something said in an alley a couple of weeks ago, right before Ryder decided to shoot Akil down. I’d asked Akil if Damien could ever come back. He’d said yes. A soul-lock could be reversed.

Lacy must have seen my eyes widen. “What?”

“There’s a way,” I whispered. “There’s a way to bring him back.”