Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) (31 page)

"Okay." The coffee man's jowls wobbled, and blindly he grabbed a wet glass and stuffed his cloth inside.

I slid into the booth across from Gavain, the velvet warm under my thighs. I could use my persuasion on him, get what I wanted. But how was that any better than him slipping me that fairy fuck-me drug? I didn't have the heart.

"Tam's lost. I need you to help me find him."

He drained his glass, his welted throat bobbing. He ripped open three packets of sugar at once and dumped them into the next one. Froth bubbled and slid down the side. "He's at Kane's. I saw him. He didn't come out." He downed the second coffee in a series of hard swallows.

Dismay tweaked my guts. I knew it. "That's because he's in hell, Gavain. Get it? He's gone to hell for me. You think I feel good about that?"

His mouth dropped open. "Oh. Not, not, no way."

"Yes, way. You've been there, right?"

His hands fluttered, trapped butterflies. "Sure. Red sky. Crazy motherfuckers. Stinks of shit and ashes. Gotta get him out, jasmine. Gotta gotta." He spilled sugar all over the table in his haste to get his third coffee down.

Good for him. I suppose a caffeine high's better than dead drunk or wasted. "Now you're talking. So what's the plan?"

He stared at me blankly, halfway out of his chair. "You're the smoke girl. Magic him out."

"You don't understand. I can't find him. I can't find my lamp. We have to go there and look for him."

A dark grin spread over his face. "Nice. You search, I slash, flash, oops, you're dead again. You'll like it there, smoke girl."

Cold little feet walked up my spine. "I doubt it. But once we get there, the lamp should be easier to find. But how can we get him out?"

"Smoke." Gavain wiggled his fingers in the air and giggled, evil.

I sighed, frustrated. "I told you, it doesn't work like that. I can't defeat death. You think I haven't tried? I swap things. That's all."

"But, but, no one leaves once they're dead. Stay alive, that's the hell rule." His voice choked on the last few syllables, and his lashes glinted wet in the soft lamplight.

My heart stung, for him and for me. I squeezed Gavain's narrow hand. "There must be something we can do. Tam was already dead once. Maybe that makes him a special case."

Gavain's hand stiffened in mine, feverish. "Swap things."

"Huh?"

"You swap things. Swap me." His eyes rolled, wild and glinting.

"What?"

"No one leaves once they're dead. I'm alive. Swap me for Tam. He goes. I stay. Slash, flash. It's good. Say you will." His words tripped over each other, and he bounced up and down in his seat like a mad clockwork frog.

My nerves juddered, abused. What was this, suicidal madman day? No way. Not on my watch, sweetie.

I opened my mouth to tell him he was crazy, and shut it again.

At least I had his enthusiasm. I needed his help. We'd worry about the plan later. Let him think I'd waste him for Tam's sake, if it made him feel better. I'd just have to think of something else.

If there is anything else, Jewel. If it comes down to a choice . . .

I raked up a smile. "You're on. Now get me the hellsauce."

Gavain shrugged, sheepish. "No cash."

"Never you mind about that."

***

In the street, outside a convenience store, where the day's news headlines fluttered in wire cages and commuters hurried to and fro with coffee in paper cups, Gavain leaned over my shoulder and pointed an extra-knuckled brown finger. "That one. He's loaded."

"You sure?" I eyed the white-haired fae boy suspiciously. Didn't look like hell's drug dealer.

Gavain shrugged, warm against my back. "He's into it. Done me loads of times."

"Right." I bet he had. He was cute, with swanky black wings and a hard little body I envied. I sauntered up to the boy and smiled, magical persuasion sparkling in my veins. "You carrying?"

His liquid silver eyes widened, besotted. "Sure."

"Helltrip?"

"The best."

"Give it to me."

"Okay." Obsidian dust drifted from his wings. He dug in his jeans pocket and extracted a gritty glass vial filled with muddy gunge. He flickered a cruel black tongue over his lips, his eyes flitting to Gavain and back to me. "You sharing?"

"Not this time, sweetie." I kissed my fingertips, planted them on his sweet silver mouth and turned away.

Gavain took the vial and popped the cork. Brown steam hissed, angry. "Ready?"

"Sure." My muscles twitched. No, I'm not bloody ready. Who's ever ready to go to hell?

My nerves must have showed, because Gavain stroked light-fingered claws over my face, the tiny sting focusing me. "It's okay. Just like here, only redder. Weapons first. Don't scream."

Advice, from a half-mad fae-struck weirdo. Great. But my blood soothed nonetheless, and impulse moved me to speak. "I'm glad you're here, Gavain."

He slipped behind me, sliding his arms around my waist and wrapping me in his dark sugary scent. He tipped half the shitty brown muck into his cupped palm, his skin sizzling, and offered the depleted vial to me. "Drink?"

I grabbed it in both hands, the caustic stink wrinkling my nose. He wrapped his free arm tightly around me. I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, my fingers tingling with anticipation and dread.

Hold on, Tam, you guilty prick. We're coming.

"See you there." I squeezed my eyes shut, dragged the foul thing to my lips and chugged.

***

Chapter Thirty-One

Lumpy liquid seared my tongue with the taste of shit, and I gagged but somehow sealed my lips shut. Panic surged in my chest, my heart pounding like death in my eardrums. I couldn't swallow this awful stuff. I couldn't.

But spit it out, and Tam stays dead. Maybe we die too. Not an option.

I gritted my teeth, and forced my throat to unlock. Behind me, I felt Gavain gulp. I dragged my stomach muscles loose, and swallowed.

My throat burned as the fetid scum frothed down. Pain ripped through my bones, slashing the flesh free like a butcher's knife. I screamed.

Gavain wrapped his arms around my chest so I couldn't break free. I struggled and kicked, and vaguely I felt him flex his calf around my knees to keep me still, heard him murmur dark nonsense in my ear. Through my raging pain I could feel him breathing, swift and ragged. My butt pressed into his lap, and his cock bulged, hard. He actually liked this.

Smoke rippled through my veins as my soul tore free. I could see us, locked in a horrid embrace, and as I watched my body dissolved to smoke, leaving Gavain alone. Then, my vision blackened like tar, and I saw us no more.

My skull bounced on concrete, pain flaring. The familiar street sounds were gone, the traffic noise and electric buzz of lights vanished. Rough ground slashed my chest, heat searing my back like sunburn, and I smelled burning flesh and fire.

I forced my eyes open and struggled up from the ground. It was night-time, hot and humid, the air crawling thick. My palms stung sharply. I lay in a pile of broken glass, spattered with what I could only assume was my blood.

My pulse galloped, and I scrambled away, glass slashing at my hands and knees, only to stumble over something cold and heavy. I looked down. Ripped meat, exposed bone, the remnants of burst eyeballs sticky on a chewed human face.

I recoiled, my flesh crawling. Above, the sky burned scarlet with some feral sunset, shadows of charred buildings crowding in. Broken concrete slabs thrust up from ripped bitumen in the street, the remnants of a vast earthquake. Black carrion birds squawked and circled overhead.

I crouched, foul stickiness coating my throat. "Gavain?"

My voice didn't echo. I sounded small and futile in the silence. I huddled tighter in cold sweat. In the near distance, a window shattered.

"Gavain, you here?" Louder, the pitch of my voice wrenching higher. Distant ricochet of gunshots, the scrape of steel, a throaty scream.

Panting, an animal's rough breath. I spun around, broken tiles clattering under my feet. Nothing. Alone.

Clawed footsteps scraped the shattered ground, racing closer. My guts watered, and my legs started shaking. Anything for a weapon. "Gavain, stop fucking around—"

My face hit the concrete, scraping raw. Hot body weight crushed me to the ground, squeezing my breath away. I tried to yell, to struggle, but it was too heavy. I couldn't move. I couldn't get enough breath in my lungs to smoke. Trapped.

Burning fingers slithered under my shirt, scrabbling for my flesh. The silk ripped open, scraping my ribs on glass shards. Razor claws cruelly tweaked my nipple. I yelled. Hot wet laughter squelched in my ear, and a bony limb squirmed between my thighs, levering them apart.

Metal scythed, ringing. Hot sticky gunk splattered on my face, and a warty green head smacked onto the concrete in a tangle of insect-torn black hair.

The weight shifted, the corpse tumbling to one side. Stinking air rushed into my lungs, and long fingers wrapped around my wrist, impossibly flexible. I opened my mouth to scream.

"Peace," hissed Gavain, and tugged me to my feet.

I scrambled upright, relief washing my limbs. Green blood splattered Gavain crosswise, streaking his face like demonic makeup. He gripped the handle of a rusty metal blade, three feet long and bent, a crooked scimitar, and he slung it through the air to clean it, green droplets spraying the concrete.

I caught my breath. The beast's body lumped before us, the tattered remains of clothing hanging from its limbs, moldy wings still twitching on its back. I shuddered and looked away, but the scenery didn't make me feel better. "What was that?"

Gavain grinned, his ruby eyes crazed. "Hell. Slash, flash. Stay alive, that's—"

"That's the hell rule. Yeah, I get it. How long before this stuff wears off?"

"Some hours. Not soon. Not long."

I glanced around again, more careful now I'd calmed down. Unseen creatures gibbered in the distance, cackling and screaming like madmen. These buildings looked familiar. The coffee shop, the terraces, the verandahs, broken but recognizable.

Just like home, only redder. A dirty mirror of the real world. Terrific.

Gavain sidled up, twitching crafty fingers over my ripped shirt to tidy it. "Lamp, jasmine girl. Which way?"

"Wh— yeah, okay. Just a second." I pulled myself together. Tam could be anywhere, and we didn't have time to for me to work up courage.

I sucked in a close breath and smoked, squirting my particles upwards into the still air. Moisture clogged me, hell's twisted gravity tugging at my shapes. I fought, rising, seeking my center, the lamp, the magical magnet that would draw me home.

Blackened buildings splayed before me, the corpse of a plague-ridden city, streaked with twisted freeways and ash pits and mass graves. The sea swarmed in the distance, sick and yellow with pollution, and above me in the scarlet sky, bruised clouds hung pregnant and leaked acid rain.

My pulse thrummed, excited. There it was, a faint tug over the city towards the poisoned ocean. Not far. My lamp, at last. But in whose hands would I find it?

Impulse sparkled through me, to fly to my lamp and see. I resisted, shimmering with indecision. Not taking Gavain would be foolishness.

But if Gavain thought I'd kill him to set Tam free, he could bloody well think again. He'd done his bit. Time to do mine.

I collected myself, and swooped towards the magnetic pull of brass. Behind me, Gavain's indignant screech stretched, the pitch falling as I sped away.

Gritty air streaked through me as I flew on invisible currents, the atmosphere thick and sluggish like warm treacle. Bugs bit at me as I flew, not ordinary gnats but flabby open-mouthed things that buzzed foully and snapped big black teeth in my path. Below me, bigger creatures ran like ants through broken streets, fairies, mortals, spriggans, a constant bloody fight to the death. Gunshots ripped the air, edged weapons and teeth clashing amidst shrieks and howls of pain.

I darted lower, around a black-scarred brick corner. A blue fairy flapped ruined wings at me, dodging through the air screaming as a fat bleeding woman slashed at him with a scythe, hatred shining from her eyes. My particles scattered like lost iron filings, and wildly I dragged them back together, scraping the air for every last one.

Along a melted alley, tar pooling and glass hardened in lumps at the base of the empty windows. Under a broken doorway, through a scorched café littered with plague bodies, rainbow blood splashed on the walls. A dark courtyard where rotting rubbish stank, greasy and tumbling over the top of a rusty skip. My motes shuddered, centrifuging. I'm here.

I thumped back to ground, my skin raw from the toxic air. "Tam?

***

I crouch under the table in a cloud of falling ash, clutching the lamp to my chest. Someone just said my name. I'm sure of it. But that happens a lot around here.