Brush of Darkness (29 page)

Brigadun hung back at one point to wait for us to catch up, eyeing Melanie’s violin case with interest. “You’re the Door Maker, aren’t you? The one who won the bet with—”

“Yes,” Melanie interjected, cutting him off with a warning look. “I am. And I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Sorry.” He dropped her an abashed smile. “That’s a pretty neat trick though. What’s the secret?”

Melanie frowned at him, shifting as though to pull the violin farther away from him. “There is no secret. I have synesthesia,” she said finally. “Or some form of it.”

The daemon blinked. “You have what? Is it contagious?”

“I see music,” she said, her jaw tensing. “Notes appear to me as colors.” Her fingers crept up to the violinist’s mark beneath her chin, rubbing it violently.

Brigudun looked at her blankly, opening his mouth to speak. I shook my head at him. “Like musical Skittles. You know, taste the rainbow? Same sort of thing.” I squeezed her arm and she sighed, giving me a tight smile. I had learned about that particular quirk back at Juilliard, but I hadn’t realized it tied in to her ability to make Doors.

Secrets upon secrets, and nothing I was willing to press her on just now.

At last we came to a run-down Victorian, the front porch decaying and decadent against a wall of ivy. “You’re sure this is the place?” Not that it didn’t look suitably spooky, but it just seemed terribly obvious. As if on cue, a loose shutter
creaked ominously, tapping against the house.

“Yeah,” Brigadun muttered, shifting from one foot to the other. “We only came here once or twice. It’s haunted.”

Melanie glanced back at the house with interest. “Really? Too bad we don’t have Charlie with us.” She stilled, as though she’d just realized what she’d said.

“Exorcist?” Brigadun said, impressed.

“No, she just has an affinity for the . . . dead, I guess.”

“Let’s go,” I said gruffly. In truth, my knees were starting to quake, scenes from horror flicks rattling through my brain. The sort where you just
know
the heroine is too stupid to live. And yet, here we were.

But I wasn’t alone. Phineas squirmed beneath my arm to poke his head out from the purse. “What a dump.”

Brigadun gestured at us, raising his finger to her lips, crouching through a hole in the picket fence. It would have been pretty with a fresh coat of paint, but it had been left to sag and fade, rotting away from the inside. Melanie followed the daemon and then I walked behind her, with Brystion bringing up the rear.

The incubus had been silent during our walk, with none of his usual sarcastic digs. I reached back and gave his hand a squeeze.

We went around the back of the house, past a rosebush growing wildly up to the garden shed. Brigadun reached for the lock and cringed as it creaked. After a moment of silence he shrugged and opened the door, standing back to let us peer in.

A wave of turpentine and linseed oil hit me in the face, as though the scent had been trapped inside for a long time. “Man, it’s dark in here,” Phineas grunted, wriggling out of my purse. He pawed at the ground, his horn sparking to life with a silver halo.

“It’s not much,” he admitted. “And it won’t last too long,
but it should be enough to see what we need to.” He shook his mane and hesitantly stepped forward, illuminating the inside of the shed in a pale glow.

I let out a reluctant breath and pulled the door wider. Dirty sheets covered squared-off shapes against one wall, but aside from those and an obvious pile of painting supplies, the shed was empty.

“Topher,” Brystion breathed behind me, a quiet rage clipping the word with a finality that did not bode well for the painter.

“We don’t know that yet,” I said, but even I knew the words were nothing more than a futile hope that my painter friend was not involved. Without a word, the incubus strode toward the sheets, his jaw set grim and tight. I tried not to glance away as he pulled back the first sheet.

He let out a low cry, kneeling before the first painting. I crouched beside him, straining to make out the details. A woman’s form, hunched and curled, her limbs arched in a mocking sort of rigor mortis, fingertips pressing against the canvas as though she had tried to claw her way out of it.

Melanie made a retching sound. “That’s Lintane.”

“You knew her?” The moment the words slipped out of my mouth I felt like an idiot. She nodded her head, her lips in a grim line.

Brystion pulled back another sheet. I forced myself to look at this one. Another succubus, I assumed, this one curled into a fetal ball, her skin sagging and dried out into flakes upon the floor. The third was winged like Sonja, but there was nothing left of her feathered limbs except some crumpled bones. I sucked in a deep gulp of air, the taste of paint thinner like poison in my lungs. “Ion?”

The incubus turned his face to me for one awful moment, and those eyes shone like they might swallow the night in their grief. Behind us, Brigadun moaned, one hand over his
mouth as though he might vomit. I struggled to stay on my feet, the realization that these had been real people pinching my heart as though it might burst.

“I’m so sorry,” I croaked, uncertain what to do. I reached out anyway, my cold fingers grasping Ion’s. I nearly flinched from the heat beneath his skin, the grip of his knuckles grinding into mine. “It’s evidence now. We should . . . save . . . them. For the Council.”

At my feet, Phineas suddenly swiveled his ears. “’Ware the door!” he barked, neighing as the door slammed shut.

Brystion whirled on the daemon. “What bullshit is this?”

“I didn’t know,” Brigadun said, the Glamour dropping from him with a shudder. “They told me if I brought her here”—he gestured at the suddenly wide-eyed Melanie—“they’d let me go.”

“And now you’re going to die,” Brystion snarled, lurching for him. He tore his hand from my grasp, neatly snatching at the daemon’s chin horn so that he couldn’t move.

“Hold up! Something’s burning,” Melanie said, glancing upward. “The roof. Shit. If they’ve set this place on fire and it hits that turpentine . . .”

“Assuming we don’t die of smoke inhalation first,” I added, my upper lip curling at Brigadun. “Nice job, asshole.” I tried for the door, slamming my shoulder into it, grunting when it refused to budge.

“It’s bespelled. I can smell it.” Phineas ran toward the far wall. “There’s a hole in the back. I can slip through.”

“Make a Door,” Brigadun begged. “Then we can all get out, and they won’t have any idea.”

Brystion and I exchanged a grim look. It was a good enough plan, even if I couldn’t follow through on it. “Do it,” I murmured to Melanie. “Get yourself out. I’ll be okay. If nothing else you and Phin can find Robert or someone else.”

“What about me?” the daemon whined up at me,
struggling to break free from Brystion’s grip.

“What about you?” I retorted. “You don’t leave until I do.”

Melanie opened her violin case, fingers curling around the bow. “I need you to Contract with me,” she snapped at the daemon. “I can’t make a Door for myself.”

“What do I need to do?”

She pulled a tiny scroll from her back pocket. “Here, just push your thumb in that bit of wax.” He snatched the paper from her, pressing the scaled digit hard against the soft wax. “Now tell me where you want to go. Anywhere. Someplace safe.”

“The Hallows,” I shouted. “Go there.”

Brigadun nodded. “Sure. The Hallows.”

Ever the consummate performer, Melanie moved hurriedly but controlled, even as she started to play. The smoke grew stronger, something sooty falling from above.

“Maurice did this,” I said to Brigadun, though it wasn’t really a question.

He nodded, his eyes miserable. “I don’t want to die.” Melanie’s song changed, the beginnings of a silver Door taking shape against the back wall. And then the daemon let out a gurgle as his head slid from his body, bloody ichor rolling from his neck. The music cut off with a wail, and the Door faded into nothing.

Brysion shook his hand in disgust as Brigadun’s head fell with a sharp thud on the rotting wood floor. I gasped, my brain shutting down for a moment, so that time seemed to move in slow motion.

“Perfect timing,” a voice growled from the shadows. I cried out as large scaled hands snatched at Melanie, slicing into her arm. Another daemon emerged from behind a loose pile of boxes, a bloody dagger dripping from his hand.

Brystion moved in front of me, ignoring Brigadun’s now
twitching body. As he engaged the daemon, he pushed me back toward the painting of Lintane, my bad knee twisting so that I stumbled. My face pressed against the canvas, the woman’s fingernails like brittle seashells.

From a distance, I could hear Melanie shrieking at me to get up, her voice wavering in pain, but all around me were shadows, the glint of scales lighting up against the flames. I rolled away from the painting, glancing up to see Melanie driven to her knees, the violin twisted in her hands as she tried to hold on to it.

With a crunch of bone, her fingers snapped as the daemon snatched at her wrist and bent it back. “No!” Her eyes rolled up to the back of her head and I shot forward to catch her before she faceplanted into the floor. The daemon leered at me, waving the violin just within arm’s reach. “Not my violin,” Melanie sobbed, struggling in my arms. From the corner of my eye, I caught Phineas bolting through a tiny hole at the bottom of the shed. “Help,” I muttered, knowing he wouldn’t hear me.

Brystion growled and moved to intercept the new daemon, his hand grasping the other’s wrist, trying to wrench the violin away. The knife-wielding daemon staggered to his feet, one arm hanging loose at his side.

“Brystion!” The words crackled from my throat a second too late, the knife slashing wide and fast, embedding itself in Brystion’s thigh.

He grunted, trying to whirl upon the attacker and yet not let go of the violin. My hands scraped the rotting floorboards as I tried to pull Melanie away. My fingernails bit into something hard, a handle.

I wiped soot out of my eyes. Brystion’s form was wavering in the heated air, the Glamour getting fuzzy at the edges. I thought I caught a glimpse of something black poking through the seams of his skin, but then he was rolling
on the ground with the other daemon, the violin forgotten.

Without even realizing, I grabbed the handle, dimly recognizing it as a rusted triangle hoe. And then I was on my feet, swinging it toward the violin-stealing daemon’s head. He shouted something, the words lost in the cracking of the rooftop, as a rain of sparks fell down upon us. A siren wailed in the distance.

I swung again, the impact vibrating up to my elbows as the ancient hoe shattered against the daemon’s head. A rotting beam collapsed and then another and he faded into the smoke, violin still in hand. A moment later, a voice rattled off something in Latin, and then he brushed by me and crashed through the door, fresh air flushing in.

“Brystion,” I yelled, trying to pick Melanie off the ground. “We have to get out of here.
Now
,” I coughed.

He shifted to his feet, limping over to where Melanie and I were. He dropped the knife that had been embedded in his leg, while behind him, the prone forms of Brigadun and the other daemon lay motionless. I turned away before I could see the bloody details.

Without a word, the incubus picked Melanie up, cradling her shock-ridden body gently against him. I followed, chucking the splintered remains of the hoe to the floor. The clean air swept through my lungs, making me gasp even as I staggered away. “What about the paintings?”

“Let them burn,” he said shortly, his leg buckling slightly. Melanie moaned, a guttural sound of heartache. The red flashing lights of an approaching fire truck reflected off the nearby houses, the strobe effect making me dizzy. I glanced back at the shed and realized that if mortal authorities found evidence of nonhuman bodies in there, things were not going to go over well.

I tugged on his sleeve to bring that little fact to his attention, but the explosion as the shed launched itself to the
moon left the words ash in my mouth. I had only a moment to wonder just how much turpentine had been stored inside, and then the blast hit me in the back, thrusting me to my knees. I caught a whiff of brimstone. Maybe daemons were flammable too? In front of me, the incubus stumbled, pressing his body into the side of the house and hunching over Melanie.

Something sharp prickled into my palms and I realized I’d fallen onto the rosebush, its thorns lancing deep. My head throbbed with the smoke and the roar of the fire trucks, and yet all I could see was the dark crimson of my blood streaming from my fingertips, dripping onto the grass as though I might empty myself unto the earth.

T
he door to my apartment gave a welcoming creak, but it might have been the crack of doom for all the comfort it brought me. Brystion and I limped into my living room, a bloody, stinky mess of smoke and daemon ichor, grass stains and gashes. Whole in body, if not in heart, anyway. Phineas had not returned, and Melanie . . .

I’d let the ambulance take her away to the county hospital where I couldn’t follow. A quick phone call to Robert ensured she would be well guarded, and Brystion managed to wheedle our way out of too many questions. Just some concerned citizens walking home from the local bar, smelling something funny . . .