Darkest Before Dawn (18 page)

The veil pulsed, and with it, pleasure strummed through my quivering demon muscles. I had more, so much more to give. Levi’s words, Mother of Destruction—words I’d almost missed—briefly flitted through the inferno of my mind before skipping out of reach. My demon cared nothing for those words. Or those people. Or Ryder. But she recognized the half blood cowering on the floor behind us. She recognized power, and Dawn’s little human body threw off enough power to render my demon feral.

I worked fire and flame like a conductor directs an orchestra. A flick of a wrist, a glance, a twitch. It was easy, quick, and wondrous. Wildfire ran free. When the gas tanks on the cars blew, shrapnel pummeled my molten skin. I soaked up the pain, twisting it into pleasure. Screams, sirens, gunshots, alarms: they meant no more to me than birdsong at the break of dawn. I expected the madness, when it came, to be a violent thing. I’d thought Damien’s embrace would shred my thoughts and flay my soul, but the truth couldn’t be further from my fears. The insanity, the chaos, was instead peaceful. All I had to do, was let go. I wondered why I’d ever fought it.

Akil’s words drifted through the placid lake of my thoughts,
‘If you ceased battling your other half, and embraced the truth of what you are, you’d have your answer.’

It became clear as I stood in front of Dawn and flushed flames through the street, washing them clean of Enforcers, that freedom was within my grasp. Once free, nobody could stop me. Not the Institute. Not Akil. I was the mother of fire, and fire destroys. I was destruction.

C
hewing on my thumbnail
, I paced the tiny front room in Jerry’s modest apartment. Dawn slept on a battered old couch, a blanket pulled up under her chin, bunny tucked under an arm. We’d fled the scene, and I’d called Jerry from a payphone only once I was sure the Enforcers hadn’t sent back up after us. He hadn’t asked questions, but he didn’t need to. The street we’d left behind was ablaze. Fire crews had descended on The Voodoo Lounge. I’d walked away from a hellish nightmare of my own creating. There were bodies back there. I knew it. There had to be. When I’d summoned the fire, I’d let it gorge itself. To make matters worse, Damien’s poison had crawled into my skin and stoked my lust for chaos.

I’d heard their screams...

What if Ryder had been one of them?

“You’re going to wear a hole in my carpet.”

Jerry’s deeply delicious voice coaxed my thoughts back into the room. I looked down. There wasn’t any carpet, just well worn floorboards. Lifting my head, I fixed a neutral mask on my face and gave Jerry the picture of restrained stoicism. His backlit, muscular frame filled his kitchen doorway.

“Coffee?” He grumbled.

I nodded, not trusting my voice. I hadn’t spoken to him, not since the call. I was afraid of what I might say. My gaze fell to Dawn. I’d been protecting her. And that would have been just fine, but it wasn’t entirely true. Not all my motives had been as honorable. The demon shifted inside me, resettling, her urges sated. I’d let go. And I’d liked it.

Watching Dawn’s chest rise and fall, a resolute calm settled over me. I couldn’t go back to the Institute. I’d burned that proverbial bridge. I didn’t want to anyway. Not like this, so close to madness. I would take Dawn, and we’d go away, just the two of us. But I didn’t want to leave the life I’d made for myself. I liked my home. I enjoyed chatting with Rosa about her time in England. Lacy was like a breath of fresh air in my otherwise stale existence. After Stefan had blown my workshop to smithereens, I never thought I’d find somewhere to call home again, but Southie was as close as I was going to get. To keep Dawn safe, I’d have to walk away. To keep my neighbors and friends safe, I couldn’t go back. What would Stefan do in my shoes? As soon as I wondered as much, I smiled. He’d already done it. He’d walked away to keep those he loved safe.

I moved to the kitchen doorway and leaned against the frame. Jerry’s mountainous bulk filled the tiny galley-style room. I watched him fix two coffees, tracing my gaze over the swirl of tattoos marking his scalp. “You always been a demon doctor, Jerry?”

“Nah. I was a warrior in another life.” His deep voice filled the kitchen just as well as his muscle-bound body. Warrior was an obscure word. I was about to ask him what he meant when he planted a steaming hot cup of coffee in my hand. “Get that in you.”

I had to crane my neck to meet his eyes. For a warrior, he had curiously beautiful eyes. Beguiling. He regarded me with detached indifference. “Have you ever killed anyone?” I asked. It’s not the sort of question you can ask in passing.
How was your day? Have you killed anyone lately?
But Jerry was different. I might not have known him well, but I recognized strength when I saw it and not just physical strength either. He’d helped me before. He knew about half bloods. He’d seen a lot of things, knew a great deal about demons. There was more to him than a backstreet vet.

That fact was made all the more clear when he didn’t react at all to my question. The mask of tattoos didn’t move. He raised his mug, took a sip, glanced through the doorway behind me, and then leaned his bulk back against the countertop. “Well, I guess you aren’t as dead as the Institute made out, huh?”

“Looks that way.” I tasted the coffee. Strong. Black. It would deliver the kick of caffeine I’d surely need to keep marching forward. I’d have welcomed a shot of whiskey with it.

Jerry’s gaze roamed over me, assessing my new post-death transformation, complete with blond hair and short pink skirt. “Not sure about the pink and black...”

I arched an eyebrow. “Says the man wearing a mesh tank-top over gray sweatpants.”

He snorted a laugh but quickly sobered. “That lil’ girl asleep on my couch is Carol-Anne’s half blood, Muse. How’d you get her, and what happened at the Lounge just now?”

I flinched, not entirely surprised that Jerry knew who Dawn was. Clamping both hands around my mug, I brought it to my lips. Hot, aromatic steam wafted over my face. “I think I killed them,” I mumbled. I’d said the words. They were out there, as though speaking them made the truth all the more real. I’d expected to be afraid of the facts, but a cold weight of acceptance settled in my gut. Was this what Stefan meant when he said he didn’t care? A part of me cared. That part cared so much that I was afraid to acknowledge it for fear I might break down and let the demon in. I could crawl into the corners of my mind and hide while she took control. She wanted to. She hungered. It would be easier that way. I hide, and she wins.

Jerry slowly blinked. Even his eyelids were marked. “You’ve changed since you asked for help to control your demon months ago. You’re not that same woman. I see that. There’s steel in you now. If you killed, that’s your burden. It’s how you deal with it that will define you.” His steady tone and even stare could only come from experience.

I nodded. “I think Levi might be dead.”

His eyes narrowed to slits.

“Yeah.” Keeping my gaze trained on him, I gulped coffee, and welcomed the heat searing my tongue. “I don’t suppose that’s going to go unnoticed for long.”

He rubbed the palm of his hand over his shaved head. “You killed a Prince of Hell? A creature that can’t be killed? An immortal chaos demon?”

My eyelids fluttered as I looked down. The lie felt right. Dawn didn’t need the fallout from that coming down on her. If she had any hope of escaping all this crap, she’d need to stay off the demons’ radar. “Yeah. He had it coming. Nobody puts half bloods in cages. Not anymore.”

Jerry shifted, planted his coffee on the counter, and crossed his thick arms over his chest. “Shit. You really are something.” A smirk broke out across his lips, brightening his eyes and lessening the effects of those intimidating tats. “You know what they’ve started calling you across the veil?”

Whore. Abomination. Filth. I’d heard it all. “I can guess.”

“The Mother of Destruction.”

Jerry’s words slammed into me. I attempted to hide my reaction by freezing my expression somewhere between mild curiosity and indifference. The result probably looked as though I was having a stroke. Levi had called me the same. When demons start calling you the Mother of Destruction, shit gets real. Titles have power in the netherworld. They’re not just words. They’re a purpose.

I blinked and laughed. “That’s insane.”

“Yeah well, you’re dead, so I guess you got a posthumous rep or something. Although, from what I hear, didn’t you nuke a few hundred demons not so long ago?”

I recalled that event well. The ash-strewn images, boiling flames, and acrid smells stalked my dreams. I’d leveled a few netherworld buildings and turned on the Prince of Greed too. “Yeah.” It wasn’t something my human half was proud of. My demon, on the other hand...

“Alright. So let me get this straight.” He lifted his hand and started checking off my sins on his fingers. “You ruined the Prince of Greed, one of the First chaos demons... You killed the Price of Envy, also immortal, although not-so-much. You nuked a flock of demons. Killed your owner. Wiped out a cadre of Enforcers?” He raised his eyebrows. “For such a little thing, you’ve got some serious issues.”

I choked on a splinter of bitter laughter. It was so ludicrous that the only sane thing I could do was laugh. “You offering to be my therapist?”

“I would if I wasn’t scared of you.” He flashed me pearly white teeth.

A rich bubble of laughter burst from me. There I was, a tiny half-blood thing dressed in pink and black, standing in front of the formidable Jerry, and he’s telling me he’s afraid of me? I laughed so hard I had to put my coffee down. The demons believed me some kind of harbinger of destruction? Hilarity flirted with insanity. Laughter wracked me so damn hard my sides hurt, and my eyes watered.

“Laugh it up, Muse.” Jerry spluttered between bursts of his own laughter. “’Cause once the princes realize you’re alive, they’re gonna be coming for you.”

T
he bus ride
to Salem was a painfully slow experience. Dawn had receded into a quiet shell and refused to speak to me. I wasn’t entirely sure if the silent treatment was due to what she’d done or my own monumental fuck-up. As I watched the scenery outside the bus windows change from urban sprawl to leafy green trees, I was also acutely aware that my brother would soon realize Levi was dead. Would he suspect his supposedly deceased half-sister? He knew about Blackstone—where Dawn and I were headed. It wouldn’t take him long to find us. Once inside, we were safe. It was the only sanctuary left. I couldn’t risk exposing my neighbors to the likes of Val. I needed to get away, to regroup and collect my thoughts. Blackstone was my last chance to figure out my next move. The Institute would be looking for us. Jenna had likely told them about Akil’s house in the country. That meant I’d have to plan my next move quickly.

Security lighting puddled around Blackstone. Dawn and I had trudged up the driveway, wrung out, saying nothing. Her power coiled around her and throbbed like the dark thing clenching my heart. What a pair we made.

The night was quiet and calm. It soothed my wrung-out thoughts, but my demon stalked too close to the surface of my mind for comfort. The devil on my shoulder, she whispered, coerced, and tingled my human senses. I would need to shut her down if I wanted to pretend everything was fine and dandy. Another confrontation like the last could tip the scales of my control indefinitely.

I’d expected Blackstone to be empty, but as we rounded the bend in the driveway, I saw that someone was clearly home. A sleek, black and silver Lamborghini had gouged out four grooves in the loose gravel before being discarded outside the house. I glanced at the car as we passed. Low to the ground, shaped like an arrow, its sleek lines and undulating curves gave it the appearance of travelling a hundred miles an hour while parked.

Two steps past the Lambo, a wall of heat blasted across my skin. I jerked back, pink human flesh firing off pain receptors in my brain. A rich curse followed. If I taught her nothing else, Dawn would have a colorful new vocabulary. Between us and the house, a wall of almost tangible heat blocked our path. I could call my demon, but I really didn’t want to risk having her back in my skin so soon.

Let me out. Let me play. This heat is nothing
.
We hunger. We devour. We destroy.

I gritted my teeth and gave her the mental equivalent of a shove.
Back off, bitch. I’m in charge.
She snarled. I snarled. Before I could further entertain arguing with myself, I stepped into the wall of heat and drew it into my flesh with an inward breath. Once more, it came easily, eager to join the bubbling chaos simmering inside me. With the heat gone, Dawn followed in my footsteps, silent and calm. I sensed Akil’s unique elemental touch slithering around my ankles. It was weak, though. My demon purred. I licked my dry lips. Yes, we would like for Akil to be here. A snarl crawled across my top lip.

“Muse?”

Dawn’s quiet voice cooled the lust burning through me. I glanced back at her. So small. So fragile. So freakin’ powerful she could unravel my DNA if I pissed her off. “It’s okay.” I mustered a smile. “I think Akil is here. Do you sense him?”

She nodded, big human eyes widening. Killers shouldn’t look like little girls. Was it wrong that I could look her in the eyes and feel sorry for her while also fearing her? She was terror, camouflaged in the body of a nine year old. What must she be thinking? How would her young mind process what she’d done? Did she care?

After entering Blackstone with the hidden key, I followed the beckon of Akil’s element and came to an abrupt halt in the lounge doorway. Dawn peeked from behind my leg and sucked in a tight yelp.

Mammon lay sprawled in front of a cold fireplace, wings draped over him like a black sheet over a corpse. The marble floor had cracked beneath him, likely from heat stress. The walls around the room bore the scars of an inferno. The ceiling had a layer of soot so thick it looked like the night sky. I could only assume the fragments of fabric and metal scattered here and there were the immolated remains of the furniture.

“Is he alive?” Dawn whispered.

“Yes.” The sound of his bellows breathing confirmed it, but the lava veins tracing across his skin barely glowed. I inched closer when Dawn’s hand on mine stopped me.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t think he’ll hurt me.” I would have welcomed my demon, but the symbols etched into the construction of Blackstone held her back. Sneaking up on an unconscious Prince of Hell while wrapped in my fragile humanity wasn’t the best idea I’d had all day. One swipe of his hand could cave in my skull. “Dawn, it might be best if you went to your room. Do you remember where it is?”

She nodded and hurried out of the room. Only once she was safely out of earshot, did I turn back to the Prince of Greed.

“Mammon...” I whispered.

Seeing him sprawled in front of the fireplace seemed deeply wrong, like birds on the ground or rivers flowing upstream. Mammon had always been a force of nature, a natural disaster that threatened with his mere presence. To see him face down on the floor and vulnerable disturbed both halves of me on a deeply primal level.

With heavy steps, I shirked around his wing tip and traced my gaze across his muscular shoulder, over his bicep, his forearm, hand... and flicked it to his open eyes.
Dead eyes. Black. Empty.

My breath caught, and my heart fluttered. What was wrong with him? How long had he been like this? Who could have hurt him? “Mammon?” I inched closer and crouched on my heels beside his hand. The heat rolling off him should have been unbearable, but I felt his power as little more than the warmth of the sun on a summer’s day. “Akil?”

His black eyes blinked and widened. He snorted air, breathing it into him. The entire musculature of his body quivered. I had a moment to realize I should get out of his way, when he lunged with alarming speed. I sprang back, stumbled, and fell on my ass with a grunt. Mammon knocked me flat on my back. He braced powerful arms either side of my head. Rigid thighs fenced me in, and his vast obsidian body arched over me, muscles rippling, but he didn’t touch me. Jesus, I’d never been so close to him while so completely human before. My head swirled, eyes stinging. Tears slipped over my lashes and dried on my cheeks. His gaze pulled me in while at the same time repelling me, urging me to look away.

Mammon bowed his head and inhaled at my neck. My skin briefly cooled as he drew the hot air into his lungs, but the heat quickly returned when he sighed the breath out again. His vast wings settled either side of us. I struggled to swallow, my mouth as dry as sandpaper while my throat burned. If he fell on me, he could easily crush me and would most certainly burn me.

I gave my demon a mental tug, but she butted up against invisible barriers. A ripple of power spilled through me, just enough that it no longer hurt to
see
him, and a violent tremor shocked through his body. He snarled. Black lips undulated over fangs the size of my fingers. I told myself if he were going to kill me, he’d have done it already. And then it occurred to me that killing might not be the first thing on his mind. I flicked my gaze down the crevice between our bodies.
Oh shit.

“Okay, big guy, I can’t summon my demon here, remember? I’m just little ol’ me, crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle. Please don’t act on those thoughts in your head right now.” I’d have shoved him back if his skin wouldn’t have caused me third degree burns. I seized a breath of sweltering air and summoned some authority. After what I’d dealt with over the last hell-knows-how-long, I could sure as hell tame a sexed-up Mammon.

“Mammon, Prince of Greed.” I held his stare, denying the headache punching through my skull. “Back off.”

He thrust his head forward, too close. A blast of heat tightened the skin on my face. I cringed and turned away. Tremors rolled from the tips of my fingers to my toes. Okay, so maybe using the authority-voice had been a very bad idea. I’d forgotten he liked it when I fought him.

He pushed up, herculean arms acting like hydraulic rams to heave his bulk off of me. Sprawled on my back beneath him, I could do little but watch with a mixture of awe and fear as Mammon peeled apart. The hand that went to his head flickered from volcanic black to tanned bronze, claws receding and then punching from his fingers again. His body reshaped, drawing the parts of Mammon inside, and then remaking and reshuffling demon flesh into human skin. It took time. Seconds, minutes, I don’t know how long. I couldn’t move, inexplicably fascinated as lashings of power knotted together, peeled apart, then tangled into the shape of a man.

Akil collapsed, naked and trembling beside me. Perspiration glistened on his chest, beaded over slick muscles, and trickled into the valley of his navel. I forced my focus higher, where he rested the crook of his arm over his face, hiding his expression. His breath sawed through gritted teeth.

I blinked, stunned into silence. He was okay. At least he was alive. That was good, right? I got to my knees, pinching my clothes away from my sweat-soaked skin. The stifling air inside the house crowded me. I needed to get away, to get some cool air into my lungs.

“You were dead.” Akil’s barely human voice grated from the back of his throat. He turned his head toward me, and I wasn’t sure if his face was wet with perspiration or tears. It had to be sweat because the alternative was unthinkable.

I opened my mouth to explain but found my voice had abandoned me. Where did I start? Stefan, Dawn, Levi... the dead Enforcers. He couldn’t help me with any of it. They were my mistakes. My problems. Akil couldn’t save me from myself. Somewhere down the line, I’d stopped expecting him to.

“I should go.” I climbed onto unsteady legs and, wiping the dampness from my forehead, I stumbled for the door.

Akil choked on a dry laugh. The ragged sound of it stopped me a few steps from the doorway. Turning back, I swallowed hard. He still laid on the floor, a goddamn picture-perfect man, apart from the shivering and twitching and the haunted wrung-out look in his eyes when he turned them on me.

“You should stay. You need to stay.”

“No.” Staying was a terrible idea. Every second I lingered, the urge to wrap him in my arms grew more immediate. “I thought the house was empty. I didn’t realize you were here. Quite honestly, I’ve not thought about you for weeks.” I could talk the talk, but when I watched him drag himself to his feet, stagger and sway like a drunk, my conviction fell to pieces. My demon stalked too close to the surface. Raw emotion teased around the edges of my control. I battled old urges and shoved the demon back, only for her heat to spill through me again. She wanted to go to him, to dance in the fire. “I can’t do this.” I turned away.

Akil’s solid embrace fell on me from behind. I immediately lashed out, only to find myself planted against the wall. His deliciously spicy, otherworldly scent burned my senses. I tensed to shove back, but he pinned me still, rigid naked muscles smothering me. A growl rumbled through him, like distant thunder. A warning. It stirred my instincts. My responding growl came easily. “I told your alter-ego Mammon to get the fuck off me. If you don’t let me go, I’ll fight like a demon until you do. In the condition you’re in, I might even have a chance.”

He bowed his head and sucked in a breath just as Mammon had done moments before. His broad chest expanded against my back. I
would
fight him, but given his current state, I wasn’t entirely sure if fighting would help me.

“Listen well, Muse.” His words slurred behind a melodic accent, barely English, certainly demon, “I am revealing a fragment of my soul to you, here and now.” He hesitated, as though waiting for me to interrupt or perhaps contemplating his next words. “I am chaos eternal. I desire everything this world and the next offers. I am greed. I hunger.” A snarl punctured his words. “Oh, how I hunger... I want the pathetic mortals of this world to bow before me. I want all that they own, all they desire, every marvelous creation of theirs, but there is only one thing in this world that I need, and that, Muse, is you.” He leaned closer, rapid breaths whispering on my neck.

A flush of heat washed over me. I twisted in his embrace and pressed my back against the cool, hard wall. Akil planted his hands either side of me. Amber-rimmed eyes bored into mine. I’d peered into Mammon’s eyes in much the same position before, only now we were vertical instead of horizontal. “This can’t end well, Akil. You know that.” No matter what he said, it would always end the same. He’d try to evict Damien. He’d slip his power into the heart of me and seduce my soul.

He licked his lips and said very carefully around sharp teeth, “You are killing me, Muse.”

A shiver trickled through me. Fear? Maybe. Desire, lust? Certainly. He was too close, crowding me, filling my senses and clouding my thoughts. In those moments, he was all I knew, my anesthetic, and it was bliss. I needed to forget. I wanted to push the pain of reality away, to drown the horror of my own capabilities in the overbearing presence of Akil. But if I let him, he’d steal the last thread of my humanity, pluck it right out of me, and toss it away. Did he know how close I was to losing my mind? Could he sense the lure of chaos whispering to me? I gently planted my hands on his slick chest and soaked up his feverish warmth. His body quivered, and those micro movements just about undid me. When I flicked my gaze to his face, the raw emotion I saw seared my conviction. He bowed his head and sunk his hand into my hair. He pressed his scalding cheek against mine. I couldn’t slow my racing heart or pull back the sharp intakes of breath. I didn’t want to.

“I lost you,” he whispered. His lips brushed mine, and the promise of a kiss fizzled between us, so damn close I locked my teeth together, refusing to succumb. His element flushed over me, a rapid wash of heat that summoned a storm of emotion from the darkest depths of my half blood body. I gripped his broad shoulders, intent on shoving him off, but my arms wouldn’t obey. I dug my nails in, hoping to hurt him, but his growl sent a wave of sparkling lust flooding through me. A short gasp escaped my lips as the reins of control slipped away. He nipped at my mouth and swept the tip of his tongue out, testing my resistance. I had none to give.