Black Widow Demon (34 page)

“No.” What he’d seen had not been done by any animal Blade knew of. “Are you sure it’s not something that came here with Justice?” he asked in return.

Creed’s answer was equally definite. “I’m sure.”

Whatever it was, it was not on either side. Blade did not have the numbers to stand against the Godseeker as it was. A second threat would be impossible to overcome.

He wondered what might have happened to Laurel’s third companion, the one who’d gone off in search of supplies. With any luck, he was far away and safe. Regardless, he could not be counted on for help now. That left him with Creed, Walker, Raven, and Laurel, as well as a dilemma.

He needed their demon abilities. However, using those abilities to kill would only bring out more of the demon in them. He doubted if that was a serious problem for Walker and Laurel. He did not believe they had enough demon blood in them for it to be a serious concern. Creed was already a trained assassin. And Blade did not have any particular investment in any of them.

Raven was a different matter entirely. He did not want her a part of this.

“Can you reason with the other assassins?” Blade asked him.

“Not that many at once. I’d need to speak with them each individually. And that’s not going to happen.”

Blade spread his palm flat on the table’s worn surface and examined his fingers, thinking hard. “We don’t want to kill assassins or Godseekers, except in self-defense. We need to convince them somehow that we’re all on the same side.”

“What side do you believe that to be?” Creed asked. “Because from where I sit, other than your own, the only life you care about is Raven’s.”

Blade did not bother to deny it. “I’m on Raven’s side. She believes spawn deserve a place in this world and that the innocent will need protection, and she’s willing to fight for it. I’m not willing to let her, so I’ll fight for her, instead.”

Outside, the shadows lengthened as Creed thought it over. “That’s the side we should all be on, although I doubt we’ve yet reached that point. Siege had no love for Justice,” he added. “And Armor is a realistic man. So is Seeker, the other Godseeker with them. If we can somehow get rid of Justice, we may be able to reason with him. The assassins will take orders from Seeker as fast as they will from him, but in the end, they take their orders from Armor.”

And Armor took his from the Godseekers.

“Then there’s only one man you need to convince,” Blade said. “Get to Seeker, and get him to call off the assassins. They need to be warned of whatever’s out there. If it came after us, it will go after them too. Which leaves Justice to me. You don’t want to be involved in that.”

“What about the woman with him?”

“She’s mine, too,” Blade said. He could not forget what she had done to all of those people.

Creed rose from the table. He wore a heavy coat with a fur-lined hood and drew the flap over his head. “Try to take her alive if you can. Laws need to be established if the innocent are to be protected,” he reminded Blade. “If she’s brought before the Godseekers, they may find out things that might be important to know for the future.”

“She murdered an entire village of people,” Blade said. “Laurel saw it all. She knows how it happened. What more do you need to know?”

Creed finished knotting the ties of his hood. His eyes hardened. “I’d like to know why.”

…

“He didn’t mean to be so blunt or unfeeling,” Raven said to Laurel. “He sees no point in disguising the truth is all.”

Laurel passed the back of a hand over her brow. “I’m fine.” The cold air had revived her somewhat, and her trembling had eased. “I’ve lost so many people, one more shouldn’t matter this much. I don’t like to think of him suffering.”

Since Raven could not assure her he hadn’t, and Walker had nothing to contribute, she thought it best to leave it alone.

They stood at the corner of Raven’s house, between it and its drab, empty neighbor. The wind rattled a section of loose, brittle siding.

She looked at Walker. “Could you get Laurel something to drink please?”

He hesitated. She could sense his mind working. Blade had sent him to watch over them, and it would not be long before the sun went down.

“Laurel can shift to shadow, and I can take care of myself,” Raven reminded him. She allowed some of her demon allure to sift to the surface, and his eyes slid away from hers, embarrassed, but she had seen his concern for Laurel. “Blade and Creed are within shouting distance. We’re going to check the fire, pick up our basket, and meet you right here. We’ll be fine.”

He made up his mind. “I found some sealed bottles of whiskey stashed behind one wall of an old cellar,” Walker said. “I think she could use some of that.”

Whiskey was hard to find in the mountains and worth more than gold. Unless it was homemade, it could only be brought in through the desert. And until recently, the presence of demons had determined the trade routes.

“That would be perfect,” Raven said.

While he went to get the whiskey, the women hurried between the abandoned houses to collect the basket they had left behind at the smokehouse earlier. The simple, everyday task gave Laurel distraction and purpose.

With Raven carrying the basket, they turned to go. Movement caught her eye. She grabbed Laurel’s arm, setting the basket on the ground behind her as she did.

At the corner of the empty dwelling where they had been scavenging stood a woman with long black hair.

“That’s her,” Laurel said softly in Raven’s ear.

Raven’s heart raced when she saw Justice standing behind the woman. He had lost weight in the weeks since Raven had last seen him and had a bit more gray in his hair. The hardness inside him was more transparent. Raven read victory in him.

The situation was not good. With him was another man, younger, taller, and heavily freckled, who gave off the air of an assassin as he dispassionately assessed the two women facing him. But Raven had not run these past weeks only to give up so easily now.

“Shift,” she whispered to Laurel. At least then one of them could escape and go for help.

“No.” Laurel’s own initial panic seemed to have fled, replaced by a serene calm and determination of manner that added to Raven’s worries. Laurel believed she had nothing left to lose, and she wanted revenge more than survival.

Raven, too, had thought she wanted vengeance, and the sight of Justice so close tempted her. But more than that, she wanted to live. She was not afraid to die, she discovered. Not by mortal means. She simply was not ready to say good-bye to life, and to Blade. If anything happened to her, he would blame himself. She could not bear the thought of him living with so much guilt on his already overburdened conscience.

She tried to think. She did not want the strange woman to be aware of her own chaotic emotions—although she could tell by the cruel smile curling her lips that it was already too late.

“Hello, Raven,” Justice said, before he glanced at Laurel. He tugged up his collar against the bite of the piercing wind that swirled throughout the dreary remains of the mountain settlement. “Is your companion a spawn, too? What might her demon abilities be?”

Raven made no comment. Laurel’s sole ability was to shift to shadow, and she did not want the newcomers to know of it. It could yet save her life.

“We haven’t done any harm to anyone,” Raven said. “We want to be left alone, nothing more.”

Justice thumbed the brim of his hat from his forehead. “No harm? You raised a demon and destroyed an entire village.”

“That’s not true!” Laurel cried out, drawing his attention from Raven. She stared hard at the woman with Justice and pointed a finger. “She’s the one who raised the demon that killed my family.”

Laurel lunged for the demon woman, and Raven grabbed for her friend, her fingers missing purchase on the sleeve of Laurel’s coat by scant inches. The taller, freckled man drew back his arm and threw a knife he had palmed. It caught Laurel in the abdomen, and with a sharp cry of pain, she stumbled and went to her knees. Raven hurled herself forward, throwing her arms around her friend to protect her from any further attacks. Fear for her friend washed through Raven before she could suppress it. The demon woman’s smile widened. She fed on fear too, Raven realized, sickened—that made her more demon than mortal. She enjoyed killing.

A wall of flame sprang up around Raven and Laurel, pinning them into a circle. Raven saw the assassin hesitate. Then he drew back, as if uncertain now of what was happening and unwilling to take further action until he understood. Raven was grateful for that reprieve, small as it was.

“I should have run the knife through your heart when I had the chance, instead of your leg,” Raven said to Justice. “But it was too small a target.”

Justice chuckled softly at her insult. “We already know a little fire won’t harm you.” His gaze slithered from her face to Laurel’s. “But what will it do to your friend?”

He sounded curious, as if conducting some minor experiment. At a gesture from him, the demon woman tightened the circle of fire. Inside it, a few feet from Laurel, a demon slowly began to take shape, towering head and shoulders above the flames. The sight and smell of Laurel’s blood transfixed it, and it turned on her with hot, hungry eyes.

The woman who raised it did not seem to understand what she did. She had not drawn any of the boundary with it to keep it from entering the mortal world. Fire alone would not be enough to contain it for very long.

Raven had to do something. She shot to her feet, moving as far from Laurel as she could, and allowed her own inner demon to surface, hoping its allure would be enough to draw the attention of both the demon and the assassin. The demon’s massive head swung in her direction, its eyes curious now, Laurel all but forgotten. It shifted to mortal form in an instinctive response.

Raven lured it to her—one step, then a few more.

And then she had her hands on it, and it was hers. But she had none of Blade’s knives on her this time to dispatch it with, and she could not pull the one from between Laurel’s ribs for fear the action might kill her.

“Stop her!” she heard Justice commanding the demon woman, his voice harsh.

The flames shot higher, the dancing circle tightening even more around them, forcing Raven to step closer to Laurel, and in turn bringing the demon closer to her, too. Raven was not afraid of the flames. She called the fire to her, drew it in, and allowed it to fill her until the circle vanished and a smoking black ring was all that remained.

With the circle gone, and no weapon at hand, only her grip on the demon kept it from escaping into the mortal world. But the fire she’d absorbed was too much. It threatened to explode through the pores of her skin. It burned inside her, but she did not dare release it.

…

Only years of training kept Blade from a mindless rush to Raven’s defense as her screams of pain, mixed with the thick allure of her protective defenses gone wild, filled the air.

He could not leave the house unobserved through the front door as Creed, who deflected unwanted attention, just had. Instead, Blade went out a back window and into the cover of shadow, where he ran behind the houses to the place her screams led him.

He emerged to a scene of chaos.

Raven had one hand on a demon. Laurel lay on the ground behind her, gravely injured, possibly dead.

Two men stood outside a scorched and smoking circle of earth that surrounded the two women and the demon. One of the men was Justice. Blade assumed that the other was an assassin. Neither seemed to possess an ability to move, which Blade could well understand given the allure Raven did not seem to have under control. A third woman stood a few feet away from them, unaffected by Raven, her feet positioned as if ready to bolt at the first opportunity.

Flames shot from Raven’s eyes and rippled beneath her golden skin. She turned her head slightly in his direction, as if sensing his presence, and at once, the full brunt of her allure transferred to him. He had not been prepared for the extent of it, and it took him a few seconds to recover, but he shook it off as fast as he could because it indicated to him how very distressed she was.

Despite Blade’s worry for her, and Laurel’s motionless form, the demon remained his highest priority. He pushed his emotions aside and focused on the practical. Raven was all that held it in mortal form. It could not be allowed to gain freedom.

Walker materialized not far from him. He raised the rifle and would have fired on Justice if Blade had not dived for him, grabbed his arm, and wrenched the weapon from his hands.

“Self-defense only,” Blade reminded him. “Don’t make an enemy of the Godseekers and their assassins. You have to think of your future, not just this moment. Raven protects Laurel better than we can right now. We need to make certain no harm comes to her, because if that demon escapes her, we’re all dead.” He set the weapon aside, propping it against the wall of the house. “You have to trust that I’ll do my best for both of them,” he added. “Can you do that?”

Slowly, and with grudging reluctance, Walker nodded.

“Good.” Blade clapped him on the shoulder and turned his attention back to the demon.

From the corner of his eye, Blade saw the black-haired demon woman begin backing away, then turn to run. He had no choice but to let her go and hope that Creed and the assassins in the surrounding area would somehow intercept her. If she had any skills that might regain control of the demon she’d raised, she did not appear inclined to use them to help Justice.

The assassin stood back to watch Raven and the demon she held, and also Justice. He had noticed that things were not right, Blade thought, and was considering everything, which was good. Whatever Justice had told him, he no longer believed it. But he still remained a threat to Raven and Laurel.

“I want you to shift to shadow and work your way around to the tall one with the knives,” Blade said to Walker. “When I give you a signal, I want you to stop him. I don’t want you to kill him. Just hold him. That’s important,” he added. “You can’t kill either of these men. If you do, you’ll be hunted like an animal and treated worse than one if you’re caught. You’ll be made an example. Do you understand me?”