Chaos Rises: A Veil World Urban Fantasy Page 4

  I clutched the vase tighter against my side and switched the dagger to my left hand. He wasn’t going to shoot me, or he’d have done it already.

  “You should really give that back.” That threat was still there, bubbling below his deep voice. Not quite a growl, but close. His dark, wet hair licked at his cheeks and over his eyes, long enough to get a good grip on in a fight, but short enough not to obscure his vision.

  Heat throbbed down my arm where his earlier arrow had cut me. The thrill of the chase buzzed through my veins, and my demon strained against my control. He was intriguing, this one. I’d never known a demon to be modest before. My eyes flicked back to the towel.

  He slowly lowered the crossbow, his arm muscles still rigid with tension. “I don’t want to shoot you—”

  I tensed, maybe to run, maybe to act on the thoughts in my head that told me to draw on the ice again and run him through, but he got there first and fired. The arrow punched through my shoulder, slamming me back into the fence, pinning me. Agony flared hot, bright, and unforgiving.

  I would not scream—I would not—not for mere physical pain. I’d heal.

  The demon clamped his fingers around the arrow and gave it a sideways twist. I whimpered and gulped down the cry. Bastard.

  He tossed the crossbow aside and leaned in close, narrowing his eyes as he tried to peer into my gaze. Moisture beaded along his golden shoulders and glistened in his hair. I gritted my teeth against the pain and fought not to look away. You don’t look away from a demon challenge—ever. If I looked away, he’d likely tear out my throat. I glared right back.

  Still holding his towel with one hand, he used the other to tug on the vase. I clung on. He tugged harder until the pain in my shoulder burned so fiercely I had no choice but to give up the vase.

  He stepped back, shifting the vase under into the crook of his arm and gave me a puzzled once-over look. Then he turned away, scooped up the crossbow, and strode back toward his house. Light spilled down his back over a ragged river of scars that hurt to see. He disappeared behind a shrub. I heard a door click closed.

  He’d left me skewered to his fence.

  Son of a demon!

  I couldn’t go back to Allard, not bleeding and empty handed. I wasn’t leaving without that vase.

  I tucked the dagger away and wrapped trembling fingers around the arrow sticking out of my shoulder. Okay, after three… One… I yanked. The arrow didn’t budge. Teeth gritted, I squeezed my eyes closed, braced my boots against the ground, and heaved my body forward, dragging the arrow all the way through the wound until it sprang free behind me. Sparks of pain twitched through my nerves. I staggered and fell to my knees. Nausea pooled saliva in my mouth. I spat. My empty stomach dry-heaved, my body clearly telling me it had had enough.

  All that mattered was the mission. Get the vase.

  The demon could have killed me by way of an arrow to the forehead, but he hadn’t. That was his mistake. I had no such hang ups. He was demon. I was designed from the DNA up to kill demons. He had no idea who he was dealing with.

  “On your knees on the first date?”

  I lifted my head, blinking cold sweat out of my eyes. He leaned against the frame of his sliding doors, now dressed in tired blue jeans and a black snug-fitting V-neck tee. The nonchalance was an act. His element teased around him. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it—angry and insistent. He wasn’t happy, but his fake smile said otherwise.

  Demons. So good at pretending.

  “Do you speak?” he asked.

  I gingerly worked my body to its feet, wincing as something in my shoulder crunched.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “Screw you.”

  His lips twitched. “So it does speak.”

  It! I hovered my hand over my dagger. His gaze dipped, following the movement, but he didn’t move. I couldn’t see any sign of the crossbow, but he’d have it nearby. Maybe he felt safe in his home. He shouldn’t.

  “Yah know, I should be the one who’s angry. You broke into my house and stole from me.”

  “I need that vase,” I snarled, loosening more of a growl than I’d meant to.

  “I figured that part out for myself.”

  “It’s just a vase. Give it to me.”

  He pushed off the doorframe and started forward. “You need to work on your social skills.” With every step, his element lapped ahead. It touched mine, a cool, cleansing balm. I hissed in through my teeth instead of recoiling the way I wanted to.

  He held out his hand. “Give me your knife, and I’ll see about letting you inside.”

  He stood close. Too close. I flicked the dagger free.

  “Steady now.” He stilled. He flicked his fingers toward his palm, urging me to hand over the blade.

  I lunged. He blocked my strike and thrust his forearm up under mine, leaving me wide open for the punch to the gut. I crumpled over it, wrapping myself around the pain, but landed my own left hook in his side—my punch tipped with jagged ice. He let out a sharp cry and twisted away. I had him on his back foot. Never give them room to retaliate. Hit hard. Hit fast. Never back down. Demons sense weakness. Go for the kill every time. With Del’s words lending me their usual strength, I leapt at the demon’s back, hooked my weakened right arm around his neck, and pressed a blade of ice against his throat. “Give me the vase!”

  He spat a curse, whirled and groped behind him, trying to grab at me, but I was clamped on fast. His fingers hooked into my hair, pulled, and I dug the blade into his throat that little bit deeper. He stilled.

  “Don’t fight me, demon,” I snarled. “Give me what I want.”

  His element flared, rolled up from beneath us, and washed up my back in one sensuous wave. Power, rich and heady, wove around me. It was delicious until it wasn’t, until something cool and wet bubbled up my throat. I gagged, tried to breathe, and swallowed the alien substance. My vision blurred, colors swirling into a mix of madness. What the hell? More of the liquid surged up my throat and dribbled from my lips.

  The demon used the distraction to tear me from his back and fling me down. My back crunched against the ground, followed by my head, but it all seemed so far away. I clawed at my throat, gurgled, and heaved, but still the liquid bubbled over my lips.

  He stepped over me, pinned me down, and clamped a hand around my throat. His eyes were as turquoise as the Pacific under a brilliant blue sky, and right now, they were all I knew. I could fall into those eyes.

  “The human body is sixty percent water.” Iridescent colors swirled beneath his cheek, shining like the inside of a shell. “Remember that the next time you decide to test me.”

  I’m drowning. He’s drowning me… I…

  I beat hopelessly against his chest, pushed and punched, but the weakness dragged me away, and finally, blissfully, the pounding silence swallowed me whole.

  Chapter 5

  You can’t let them win. Ever. Don’t give them an inch. Don’t give them an opening. Strike first. Hit hard. Hit fast. Be stronger. Be better than they could ever be. They think we’re weak, Gem. We’ve already won. They just don’t know it yet.

  I woke with Del’s voice whispering in my ear and blinked into the sunlight pouring into a living room I didn’t recognize.

  Del wasn’t here. But I'd heard him, hadn't I? And then I remembered he was missing, and this house wasn't Fairhaven. There was the vase, back on its mantelpiece, and there was the demon, sitting in a chair, boots up on a table, eating cereal from the bowl cradled in his hand.

  What time was it? I had to get back to Allard.

  I shifted on the obscenely comfortable couch cushions and tried to sit up, but my head and shoulder beat out a painful base-like throbbing, turning my stomach over. I’d move in a minute—once I could see straight.

  “I fixed up your shoulder.” His bowl clattered against the tabletop, and the chair creaked.

  I stared up at the exposed ceiling beams, squinting into stabbing shafts of sunlight.

  “I
nteresting tattoo you’ve got.”

  He couldn’t see my face or else he’d have read the alarm there. What if he’d recognized the branding? What if he’d called the Institute, and they were on their way here? No, he wouldn’t. He was demon, and no demon would call the Institute, not unless he was looking for a fight. And damn, he could fight. Demons weren’t usually good at hand-to-hand combat. They relied on their strength, their elements, and when those didn’t work, they dropped the human act altogether and resorted to teeth and claws. But not him. He’d moved as though he was trained—like me.

  “It’s nothing. A demon brand.” I poked at my sore ribs and shifted onto my side.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and watched me from across the room. He probably thought he was safe with the width of the room between us. He wasn’t. His anger had fizzled away, along with his element. He looked like a normal guy, one you’d pass on the street, maybe even check out, without any idea of the beast beneath that West Coast tan.

  “So you’re owned then?” His absent gaze wandered about the room, as if the question was just idle small talk, but his eyes had cooled and narrowed a fraction.

  What did he know about being owned?

  “I was.”

  He made an odd little dismissive pfft noise and settled his gaze on me, but this time with purpose. “Allard sent you.”

  I pushed upright on the couch and closed my eyes for a moment, waiting for my head to stop spinning. “I don’t know any Allard.”

  “Sure you don’t. And I suppose you’re not one of the two half bloods Allard has in his stock?”

  “I’m not stock.” How did he know?

  He planted his boots and leaned forward in the chair. “Did he tell you that?”

  I refused to show how his words eroded my confidence. I wasn’t stock. I wasn’t owned. That was behind me. “It’s a partnership,” I said, and instantly regretted it. I didn’t owe this demon any explanation. He already knew too much.

  “You know half bloods are owned. It’s the way of things. It’s always been the way of things. Just because the veil closed doesn’t mean anything has changed.”

  “What do you know about being a half blood?” I snapped, reaching for my dagger only to find the sheath empty.

  The demon plucked my blade from his back pocket and placed it on the table in front of him. “I know because I am one.”

  Now it was my turn to make that dismissive snort. “No you’re not.” I sounded like Officer Ramírez. He couldn’t be a half blood. Half bloods were rare enough before the veil fell. Those who weren’t torn apart by its sudden collapse and sundering of energies were weakened and slain by demons during the battles. Besides, if he was a half blood, I’d know it. I’d feel it.

  I held his gaze. He wasn’t looking away, and neither was I. A muscle twitched in his jaw. If he was a half blood, did he perhaps know what my scorpion tattoo meant? Did he have one too? Could he be Institute? Me and Del were products of the Boston Institute. The LA Institute could have been splicing demon and human DNA too.

  “What’s your name?” I spread both hands carefully on my thighs. Dried blood brushed against my palms. The pungent smell of my own stale sweat tickled my nose. I didn’t dare check my shoulder. It still hurt, but I could think around the pain.

  He reached for the key pendant he wore on the cord around his neck and gently rubbed it between his fingers and thumb. “Torrent.”

  Torrent? A nickname, because of his water element, an element I’d gotten very familiar with last night. He could have killed me—twice—and our scuffle really hadn’t taxed him at all. He had too much power to be a half blood, didn’t he? But he had survived the Fall. Only the strongest survived.

  “Are you owned?” I asked quietly.

  “Yes.”

  I blinked and stared at the cold fireplace. Whatever demon owned Torrent must have been formidable to keep him.

  “You’re in deeper than you know, Gem.”

  He knew my name? How? His gaze stopped my runaway thoughts. The laughter had vanished from his eyes. Tension locked his body down, as though he readied for an attack, and his element rose around him. Its invisible weight prickled my skin.

  “I can’t let you leave here with the coronam.” He spoke matter-of-factly, but there was nothing calm or relaxed about the swirl of his element and its building charge.

  So he knew what the vase was. I licked my lips. “And I can’t leave here without it.”

  “Then we’re at an impasse.”

  “Yes we are.” The memory of my brother’s whispers sailed through my thoughts. “We’ve already won. They just don’t know it yet.”

  Torrent didn’t see the blade of ice coming. I formed it between one second and the next and flung it with absolute precision, straight at his heart. It punched home, dead center. They always do. I got to my feet and strode to the mantelpiece. I heard him fall, taking the table with him with a great clatter and the dull thuds of his body hitting the floor. His cereal bowl smashed, scattering jagged porcelain fragments across the hardwood floor. One butted against my boot. I looked down and toed it aside. His element swirled, hissing and spitting at mine.

  I picked up the vase and headed for the doors.

  “Walk out…” he gasped. “You…help.”

  I paused at the doors. Sunlight warmed me through, thawing the ice in my veins. “Goodbye, Torrent.”

  * * *

  One of my earliest memories was of a maze of pale green walls. The corridors never ended, no matter which way I turned. I ran, my feet bare, my paper-thin gown flapping around skinny foal-like legs, and the demons kept on coming. I’d run the maze before because I always knew which way to turn to find the little clear plastic box. I’d run and run, lungs aching, throat burning, my feet slapping against the smooth floor. The sound of scrabbling claws chased me down. I made it to the box, every time—I’d learned later, there were others who hadn’t—and once inside, I’d yank the clear door closed. The demons didn’t see the box. They saw only me, the wraith-like little half-blood girl. They would launch themselves—claws extended, jaws wide, eyes ablaze—and slam into my tiny box, sending shudders rattling through my bones. They’d snap and snarl, hook their teeth into my box, and gnaw at its edges, desperate to get to the feast huddling a few millimeters away.

  Flooding, the Institute had called it.

  At first I was afraid, and I learned how to run. Then I was angry, and I learned how to fight with my fists and my element. Then I got even. I lured those demons into a corner and ambushed them, killing every last one. After countless visits to the maze— after weeks, years—I’d started liking it, and killing became as natural as breathing. It was what I was good at, what I was made for. What I lived for.

  So why did the fact I’d killed Torrent twist eels of unease in my gut? He was just another demon. He’d said he was a half blood. That wasn’t something a demon would lie about, but being half human didn’t make him any less demon.

  I mulled over this unease as I made my way back to Fairhaven. Perhaps it was because he’d had chances to kill me and didn’t take them. But that only made him weak.

  “Strike first. Hit hard. Hit fast,” Del’s voice sounded in my thoughts. He would have squeezed my shoulder and told me I’d done the right thing. But he was gone, and I was alone.

  The final time I’d run the maze, the Institute had pitted me against my brother. And I’d been afraid all over again. The maze was my earliest memory and my last of the Institute before the demon prince with the coal-black lava-veined wings stole us away in a night scarred by fire. I didn’t like to remember what followed. As I entered Fairhaven’s grounds, I blocked the memories and focused instead on delivering the coronam.

  I waited for Allard, alone in his red room, one of the several conference rooms he used for meetings and other private things. The red room was an opulent, pre-Fall piece of comfort. Someone—I doubted it was Allard—had furnished it with leather couches and mocha touches. The walls ha
d been painted a deep red, hence the name. This was a good room. There were other not-so-good rooms. I’d seen the white room not long after arriving at the pier and had no wish to see it again. And as far as I knew, nobody but Allard himself had seen the inside of the black room.

  I placed the vase on a coffee table and wandered among the chairs, not wanting to get comfortable before I’d gauged Allard’s mood. The other tables were empty. Demons didn’t keep clutter. They had everything they needed inside their heads. The room looked staged, like a brochure picture, perfect but for the layer of dust and the slight aftertaste of demon in the air.

  My shoulder itched. I caught a pungent whiff from my clothes and wrinkled my nose. I smelled like something a demon had dragged home. I could have showered and cleaned up first, but at least Allard would see the retrieval hadn’t been easy.

  Sunlight poured in through the window. Outside, the city stretched farther than my human eyes could see—A whole world, filled with people, one I stood on the fringes of. Would it ever feel like a home?

  Power gently nudged my back. I glanced back at the vase. What did Allard plan to do with the coronam? What could he do with it? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Once I found my brother, Del would know if the coronam might be a problem and what we should do about it—if anything.

  The door rattled, and Allard breezed in. His eyes went straight to the vase. He smiled, clicked the door closed behind him, and wove his way through the chairs to the table. After a slight hesitation, he picked up the vase, cradled it carefully in one hand, and stroked the other over its surface.

  “Any trouble?” He didn’t take his eyes off the vase.

  “A demon. I dealt with it.”

  To look at the delight in Allard’s eyes, you’d think he held a priceless piece of art, not a tacky, dime-a-dozen vase. Only the dull background throbbing of power gave away the vase’s true worth.

  “This is…” He spluttered a laugh. “This is marvelous.” Then he turned and launched the vase across the room. It exploded against the red wall, shattering into countless pieces.