Demon From the Dark (6 page)

           
"Will they, indeed?" His tone was smug,
too
smug. "Then I'll add to my collection."

           
"Collection?"

           
Dixon hastily said, "Magister Chase is only doing what must be done. We all are. Whenever immortals begin to plot, we sentinels rise up, as we have for centuries."

           
"Plot?"

           
Dixon nodded. "You're planning to annihilate mankind and take over the earth."

           
Carrow's lips parted in disbelief. "That's what this is all about? My gods, it's too ridiculous! You wanna know a secret? There's no plan to kill you all, because you're beneath our notice!"

           
Ugh
--fanatical humans! Sometimes she hated them so much.

           
"We know that a war between us is coming," Dixon insisted. "If your kind isn't contained, you'll destroy us all."

           
Carrow squinted at her. "I'm warming to the idea. Especially with mortals like you. Don't you get it? Human fanatics are more monster than any of the Lore."

           
"More than the Libitinae?"

           
The Libitinae often forced men to self-castrate or die--for fun.

           
"Or maybe the Neoptera?" Dixon continued.

           
Insectlike humanoids, the stuff of nightmares. At the mention of the latter, Chase tensed even more, the muscle in his jaw bulging. Interesting.

           
Watching for any reaction, Carrow slowly said, "No, I'll grant you that the Neoptera are depraved. They don't kill their quarry; they keep it, tormenting it hour after hour."

           
Had sweat beaded on Chase's upper lip? If those creatures had gotten hold of this man ... Well, Carrow knew what they did for shits and giggles, what they did to their victim's
skin,
and it made her stomach turn.

           
Was that why Chase had covered as much of his body as possible? How was he still sane?
Was
he?

           
The inmates gossiped about this man constantly; apparently, he hated to be touched, had once clocked an orderly who'd made the mistake of tapping his shoulder.

           
That would explain the gloves.

           
She almost felt a shred of pity for him, until he grated, "And the witch believes she's better than they are."

           
And the witch is talking to a madman.
"Okay, clearly you two are beyond rational debate, so let's just get to it. Why did you take me?"

           
Dixon answered, "Our aim is not only to study you, but to conceal your existence. Most immortals fly under the radar. You flaunt your powers in front of humans."

           
Carrow had been repeatedly chastised by her coven for this. But, as she'd often argued, she never used her powers around
sober
humans. "So why'd you bring me here tonight?"

           
"You're going to help us capture a vampiric demon, a male named Malkom Slaine."

           
Heh. Twenty large says I'm not.
"A vemon? You really think they exist?" she asked innocently. Vemons had been thought an impossibility, a "true myth"--
oxymoron, hello?
--until one had been unleashed on New Orleans last year.

           
Unimaginably strong, he'd defeated several fierce Valkyrie, who'd survived only by chance. He'd barely been destroyed by the powerful Lykae king, and only because he'd been threatening the werewolf's mate.

           
"They're rare, but we have knowledge of one's existence," Dixon said. "You'll seek out this male, then lead him to us."

           
"You want me to go out and coax some poor sap to his death?"

           
"We don't intend to kill him," she said. "We want to discover his weaknesses--"

           
"And how he was made, huh?"

           
Dixon held up her palms. "We
are
interested in the anomalous beings among the Lore."

           
Anomalous. What a mild way of putting it.

           
"He lives in Oblivion, a demon hell plane."

           
The demon planes weren't parallel universes, but self-contained, hidden territories with their own climates, cultures, and demonarchies. Most of their societies were feudal and old-fashioned. Not exactly hotbeds of technology--or, say, women's liberties.

           
"I've heard of it," Carrow said. A wasteland once used as a gulag for Lore criminals, Oblivion was the former home of the Trothan Demonarchy. Before the vampires overthrew their royal line.

           
"We've been able to compile information about your target, taken from detained Trothan demons."

           
Carrow raised her brows. "You torture them to spill the beans?"

           
"They volunteered the details gladly. He's reviled among his kind, a bogeyman of sorts. You'll like him no better. He is illiterate, filthy, and brutish. Mentally, he is severely disturbed."

           
"You're calling someone 'severely disturbed' with this dude in the room?" Carrow hiked a thumb at Chase. The tension in his shoulders and neck ratcheted up, if that was possible. "You know, Dix, you're not exactly selling me on this."

           
Dixon pursed her lips. "To succeed, you will need to know exactly what you're up against."

           
"Why me?"

           
"You're from the enchantress caste of witches, and you're attractive. The males on that plane have probably never seen a female like you."

           
"That plane? Honey, try this universe. Oh, and easily
this room
."

           
"We have your history as well," Dixon snapped, losing patience with her. "In your forty-nine years of life, you've routinely done things that are very brave--and very stupid. This should suit you perfectly."

           
No argument there. And she'd only grown bolder since she'd become fully immortal twenty-three years before. "Why can't you go and get him yourselves?"

           
"He's sequestered in deep mines within a mountain and has choked the few passes with traps. He guards his domain ruthlessly. If we can't take him out, we can
lead
him out."

           
With her playing the part of Delilah?
Don't think so.
"As much as I appreciate the invitation to help out with your vemon-retrieval problem, I'm afraid I'm going to have to R.S.V.F.U."

           
Over his shoulder, Chase said, "Is that your final decision?"

           
"Yep. Even if I wanted to help you, I'm not special-ops--I'm front line." She was a general among her kind, leading armies of spellcasters. "So if you've got some urban warfare, we can talk. But not so much with the tromping around on a mountain in a hell plane." Carrow
loathed
the outdoors, Gulf Coast beaches excepted.

           
Chase said, "We thought you might be misguided in this." Were his pupils dilated? "I have something that will give you perspective." He crossed to an intercom panel on the wall, pressing a button beside it.

           
That concealed panel door slid open once more, and Fegley walked in. He had his arms full--with a young girl, unconscious and limp in his hold. Her mane of long black hair covered her face. She had on a dark T-shirt and leggings, a tiny black puff tutu, and miniature combat boots.

           
Carrow felt a stab of foreboding.
Don't let it be Ruby.
She glared at Chase. "You're taking kids prisoner?"
How many little girls dress like that?

           
Fegley sneered, "When one of them tortures and murders twenty soldiers?" Then he tossed the girl to Carrow.

           
She dove forward to catch her, shooting the man a killing look before gazing down.
Don't be her.

           
Carrow hissed in a breath. Ruby. A seven-year-old from her own coven, related to her by blood.

           
"Where's her mother?"
Amanda, a warrior-caste witch, would never have been separated from her little girl. "Answer me, you prick!"

           
Fegley snidely said, "She lost her head."

           
Amanda dead? "I'd already planned to end you, Fegley," Carrow choked out. "Now I'm going to make it
slow
."

           
Fegley merely shrugged and sauntered out, making Carrow grit her teeth with frustration. In the past, she could have electrocuted him with a touch of her hand, could've rendered him to dust as an afterthought.

           
Struggling to get her emotions under control, she turned her attention back to the child, petting her face. "Ruby, wake up!"

           
Nothing.

           
Dixon said, "She's only sedated."

           
Carrow gathered the girl closer. Her breaths and heartbeat did sound regular. "Ruby, sweet, open your eyes." Of all the young witches for them to have...

           
Within the coven, there were
tanda,
social groups of similar ages. Ruby was in a group of baby witches, or a "gang" as they called themselves--a gang more in the sense of Little Rascals than of Crips and Bloods, but it was cute.

           
Carrow and Mariketa often took them to sweets shops, getting them jacked up on sucrose before setting them loose on the coven. Ring the doorbell, drop them off, then run like hell, cackling all the way.

           
Carrow and Mariketa--Crow and Kettle, as they'd been dubbed--were the gang's favorite "aunts." Ruby was secretly Carrow's favorite as well. How could she not be? Ruby was fearless and bright, an adorable little girl dressed in ballerina punk.

           
Dixon frowned. "She could pass as your own."

           
Like many in a coven, Carrow and Ruby were related, though more closely than usual. The girl was her second cousin, and she belonged to the exact three castes that Carrow did, with her strength in the warrior caste.
Just like me.

           
Ruby's green eyes blinked open. "Crow?"

           
"I'm right here, sweetheart." When Ruby's tears welled, Carrow felt a pang like a blade in her heart. "I've got you."

           
Ruby's body tensed against hers. Eyes wild, she cried, "Mommy t-told me not to kill them! B-but when they hurt her, it ... it just happened." She was beginning to pant, her breaths shallowing.

           
"Shh, you're all right now. Just breathe easy." When Ruby got overly excited, she would hyperventilate, even passing out on occasion. "It's okay, everything's going to be all right," Carrow lied, rocking her. "Just breathe."

           
"They swung a sword at her neck!" Her chest heaved for air. "I saw her ... d-die. She's
dead
--" Ruby went limp once more and her head fell back. Unconscious.

           
"Ruby! Ah, gods." Amanda was truly gone? And Ruby's father had been murdered by rogue warlocks before she'd even been born.

           
Orphan.

           
The coven didn't usually spell out things like godparents or custody. Immortals not actively at war didn't have to worry much about leaving behind orphans. But if Amanda had gone to battle, she would have expected the closest blood relation in the coven to care for her daughter.

           
That'd be Carrow, the House hellion.
Poor Ruby.

           
Though Carrow had been treated so callously by her own parents, she would do right by her responsibilities. She stared down at the girl's ashen face with a new recognition, a momentous feeling of a
shared
future.

           
Carrow had long had a unique and curious talent--the ability to sense when another had just become a part of her life forever, when their destinies would eventually be intertwined and shared.

           
In that instant, Carrow became
witch plus one
.

           
But she couldn't even get herself out of this shithole, much less a child!

           
"Action and reaction," Chase said. "You get us our target, and the two of you will go free." Though tension thrummed off him, his voice was monotone, his accent barely perceptible. "Otherwise, she dies."

           
Carrow stiffened. Against Ruby's hair, she murmured, "I'm going to take you home soon, baby." She turned to Chase. "I'll have the use of my powers?"

           
"Your torque will be deactivated for the mission," he said.

           
Not that Carrow would be able to spellcast even without her torque. She
needed
crowds and laughter for power to fuel her spells. Here she'd been tapped out, as useless as an empty keg.

           
"You'll depart tomorrow, remaining in Oblivion for six days." Dixon continued over Carrow's sputtering, "Tonight I'll assist you in collecting your gear. You'll be allowed a shower, and we'll provide you with a dossier on your target."

           
"Nearly a week in hell? How am I even supposed to get to Oblivion?"

           
Dixon answered, "Your sorceress cellmate, Melanthe, the Queen of Persuasion, can create a portal."