Demon Lord 3: Blue Star Priestess (5 page)

His arms were crossed.  He uncrossed them to flip me off.  He wore a ring not too different from the one I’d given Osamu.  It had a mother-of-pearl face, a curved shape that looked like a shark.  That meant he was a demon clan guard, but not a regular soldier.  He answered to the First Sword, the Captain of Knights. 

Ignoring the please-kill-me gesture, I turned off the engine, stepped out of my Mustang, and shut the door.   I kept my eyes on Captain Bad-Ass, walking over instead of sending a blast of
Dragon Flame.
I’d catch hell from the Old Man for killing his people without a lot more provocation.  Just as well, I was curious to see what this guy wanted.

He nodded as I stopped just out of striking distance. 

“Who are you and why are you sitting outside my house?” I asked.

“They call me Zero-T, and I just thought I’d stop by and watch you die.”  His gaze slid past my shoulder to something or someone behind me.

I shifted my hips and took a backward step toward the curb, letting my focus go wide to see everything peripherally.   If Zero-T was trying to get the drop on me, it wouldn’t work, and if something was coming up behind me, I’d see the motion.  I had both PPKs out, one pointed at Zero-T’s toothy grin, the other weapon fanning toward whatever might be attacking. 

And there it was, at the edge of sight, a pale blur racing along my parked Mustang, using it for cover. My heightened sense of smell caught a burnt scent, something fey. I had an impression of long, bone-white hair, ice blue eyes, and a frosty gray cloak.

I squeezed off round after round from my left-hand weapon, keeping Zero-T covered with my right.  He didn’t twitch.  His grin didn’t fade.  All he needed was a bag of popcorn while watching the show.

I’d been leading the pale fey with my muzzle but my target didn’t indulge me by running into my line of fire.  He-she-it went vertical, slithering up on the hood of my Mustang, taking the high ground.  I backtracked with my smoking PPK, mentally counting expended rounds.

The fey leaped.

I used the last two rounds in my magazine to try and blind it and shred its brain.  One round missed.  The other gouged its cheek, sliding into the left eye socket.  The fey’s battle scream went up a couple notches as it crashed into me and we fell.  I tucked one folded knee between us, kicking out as I rolled backward.  The Judo “turtle throw” got the assassin off me long enough for me to holster the empty gun, summon my demon sword, and make sure Zero-T wasn’t jumping into the fight.

He smiled coldly.  “A real demon would have killed the fey by now.  This is why you’re unfit to lead.”

My eye-shot should have killed the fey.  Something was very wrong here.  “Fuck you.”  I tossed my gun in the air.  The
Muramasa sword went to my free hand.  I caught the dropping gun in my left hand, covering Zero-T once more.  I was braced for the androgynous fey to charge once more, but he-she-it stayed put, palms pointing my way in a warding-off gesture.

Violent-white lightning unspooled from those pale, slim hands, crashing into me, lifting me from my feet.  In the back of my head, I heard my demon sword screaming in outrage and pain.  Slammed back onto the hood of my Mustang, I slid up into the windshield.  I felt it slump under me, webbed with cracks but not completely shattered.   Agony wound throughout my body, my whole nervous system on overload. 

Sonnovabitch!

FIVE

“The best way to feel alive is to kill,

Hopefully not the wrong somebody.”

                                         
                     —
Caine Deathwalker

Zero-T chuckled without an ounce of sympathy in his soul.  “Man, that’s gotta hurt.” 

I had no time for his bullshit.  He was staying out of the fight, so I’d deal with him later.  I needed to move before another one of those lightning jags tore me apart.  The only reason I had any resistance at all was because I was half dragon, and that part of me could up-chuck the same kind of electrical fire.  Whoever’d sent a storm fey to skrag me hadn’t done their research.  I’d make them pay for that.

Weeping on the inside—the way a real man does—I rolled off my poor, abused vehicle, onto the street.  My clothes smoked, blackened where not altogether burned away.  There were holes in my pants with ember-red edges.  I saw—and felt—raw hamburger skin underneath.  This was good compared to the crispy black epidermis I’d expected.  My muscles jittered and trembled from shock, and my teeth seemed fused in a death’s head grimace.   I lost my grip on the PPK.  It went clattering away.  My right hand clenched, taking orders from the thirsting sword which didn’t want to be dropped when there was killing to be done.

Fortunately, the martial arts training I’d taken over the years had taught me to erect mental barriers against debilitating injury; my suffering would wait until I had time to indulge it.  My mental defense also prevented the sword from drinking my soul.  Such a blade was as dangerous to the wielder as the enemy.

The fey didn’t follow up at once, as I would have.   The creature clutched a weird-ass medallion of ultra-pure, fey silver.  The flat, bumpy-edged thing glowed blue-white, a matching fog rolling off its star sapphire centerpiece. The mist wagged across the fey face, then dissipated.  The slug I’d put in the fey skull popped out.  The wound closed, restoring the damaged eye, leaving the cheek unscarred as well. 

Healing magic
.  I made a mental note to leave the fey in very small pieces so there’d be no resurrection to deal with. 
People I kill are supposed to stay dead.  Not that they always do.

I joined both hands on the hilt of my sword, pointing its tip at the storm fey’s heart like a lightning rod.

The Muramasa blade didn’t like that, snarling in my thoughts, fighting my grip so it could angle away.  The blade had no trouble at all with me getting fried again so long as it could slash in a moment later and do damage.  I, of course, had other plans.

Behave
, I told the sword.

The fey lunged once more, the medallion falling into the pale blue shadow of the cloak.  This time I got a good look at the blouse.  The fey was female, B-cup tits modestly hidden by silvery silk.  Her glowing hands slapped against my naked blade, trapping it.  She intended to zap me by pouring power into the demon steel, melting the blade in my hand, but demon blades are tough.  It drank her power, flinging part of the lightning back in a web of fire.

I rocked, whipping my blade up to point an accusing finger at the sky.

Her eyes closed a moment.  The lady hissed, doubling over.  I smelled scorching from her clothing.  Then, wreathed in purple-white light, she snapped up and came at me.  Her eyes were lit from within, as if she were but a hollow shell for the terrible energies she carried.  A vast pressure surged up within me, a dark hunger sheathed in heart-pounding fury.  My awareness dimmed as another part of me struggled to take over.

I resisted; there was no time for a transformation into my dragon self. I’d be too vulnerable.  Somehow, in that struggle, the sword was dismissed from my hand, winking out to return to my treasure room hidden behind the basement armory.

I felt my clothing tearing, my muscles clumping, growing.  The normal day colors shifted wildly as my vision edged into the invisible light spectrums, and my human brain tried to make sense of it.  Thoughts slowed to mere impressions, like puzzle pieces tearing apart.  Still mostly human, I snarled, choking as fey hands gripped my throat.  Burning fingers dug into my skin with more than human strength.   Inside my head, flaming mist shrouded my vision.  I needed real flame. 
Dragon fire! 
I clutched at the single thought, hoping my other side would cooperate. 

No, too much to hope for.

My tattoo stayed dormant, but a curious thing was happening—the electrical fire pouring into me no longer hurt.  I was embracing it, swallowing it the way my demon sword devoured souls.  The burn felt better than a swallow of Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.  My grin returned, but it wasn’t really mine.  A dragon roar thundered inside my skull.  I felt my human thoughts blasted to pieces in a razor-sharp whirl of darkness as another mind stepped in to control my human body.  

Without haste, I reached up and grabbed the lady’s wrists.  I applied pressure, my hands igniting with little jags of golden lightening.  Her face bleached white, the way everything does when lightning tries to kill the world.  My stare burned with white light, as incandescent as the fey’s own widening eyes.  Her grip slacked. 

I gulped air, spun, and dragged her across my hip, driving her face into the grille of my Mustang.  The impact dazed her; her aura of purple-white discharges dimmed.  I had dragon blood tattoos all over my body for all kinds of spells.  I ignored them.  A dragon doesn’t borrow magic from another dragon clan; that is weakness.  Weakness is rewarded with death.  Besides, there was rich, succulent satisfaction in opposing her with the same brute force she’d brought to me. 

I drove my fingers into the silver mop of her hair and hauled her up, only to slam her down on my well-dented hood.  The whumping sound was pleasant, but not deep enough; she’d managed to lessen the impact by getting her arms under her to brace against the impact.  I growled at her, ticked off.  When I want someone to hurt, they should not be difficult. 

I seized both her ankles and lifted, flicking her over my head so she could almost stand on my shoulders.  I whipped her down, bludgeoning my own vehicle, caring only for blood. 

I heard and felt the human part of me stirring in the depths of our mind.  No, damn it, not my car!

My dragon soul roared, shivering my inner universe, as I continued to beat her into the shattered pieces of my vehicle. 

I became aware that the body I was flailing had become considerably lighter.  What was left of her arced with savage charges of lightning, just so much burnt meat.  I laughed as searing jags played over me, draining into me, further fueling my rage and strength.  I healed the damage to my body while paying it little attention.  Laughing in the delirium of battle, I let darkness reclaimed me.  My other self returned.  

The black mists thinned.  I grew still, studying what I held: two legs, one severed from the hip, the other from the knee.  The rest of her were chunky, bloody smears of shattered bone and pulverized tissues.  I blinked and dropped the legs.  They hit the pavement, bounced, and rolled a little.  The longer leg stopped against the fallen medallion.  Its chain was a silver serpent half coiled.  The centerpiece was a cloud, grown dull, its sapphire a flat blue without sparkle.  It seemed as dead as its former owner.

Disappointed that the fun was over, what little of it I remembered, I turned to look at Zero-

T.  He was no longer sitting back against his car.  He stood, his brown complexion turning somewhat gray, his insolent smirk long gone.  The guy was a demon; you’d have thought a little bloody excess wouldn’t have thrown him.

I glowered, wondering if there was still lightning in my eyes.  “You want some too?”

“I had no doubt that you were unworthy of Lauphram’s favor, of being his heir.  I thought a human couldn’t have what it took to rule demon kind.”  His gaze flinched from mine, sliding over to the shattered wreck of my Mustang.  His voice creaked.  “It never occurred to me that there are worse things than us demons.”  He stepped toward me and set one knee to the street, kneeling.  He placed a fist over his heart and bowed his head to me.  “I pledge my honor and my service to Lauphram’s heir, withdrawing all reservations and objections.”

I had the impulse to kick him in the face, but that was just the residual adrenaline whispering in my ear.  The pounding of my heart had settled to a normal tempo.  The dragon strength that had flooded my cells was ghosting away, leaving me tired. 
And I really need a drink
.  I looked down at my ruined clothing. 
And a new suit.

“What do you know about the fey assassin?  Did the First Sword hire her?  Were you sent here to be a distraction?”

“I know nothing of her.  I just happened to see her before you did.  I swear it.”

“You’ll be doing it without your balls if I find out different.  Stand up.  Your pledge is accepted.”  I waved at the, uh, crime scene
.  “Clean this shit up before someone comes over to investigate the rape of my car.  I’m going in to fix myself.”

I turned my back on him and walked toward my front door.  I’d just gotten inside when my phone played
Tears of the Dragon
, Old Man’s ringtone.  I plucked the phone from a half torn pocket, surprised that the phone hadn’t been fried by all the lightning.  I answered.  “Yeah?”

“Where are you?”  It was the Old Man.

“Got held up by a fey assassin from the Storm Court.  She’s dead.  This could be an in-house problem related to the clan gathering, or part of that mess with the mountain giant.   Too early to say.”  Waiting, I passed through the living room and took the hall toward my bedroom.

The Old Man stayed silent.

“You still there?” I asked.

“Come in and keep your eyes open.”

I went into my bedroom, kicked off my shoes, and one-handedly began stripping off the tatters I was wearing.  “One thing I need to know,” I told him.  “Did you assign personal security to me?”

“No, not that it’s a bad idea.  Why?”

I told him about Zero-T.

“The First Sword’s work.  He’s technically covering his ass by providing security, but letting his guard know that their hearts don’t have to be in their work where you’re concerned.  I’ll have a word with him.”

“I can fight my own battles,” I said.  “Besides, I think I made a convert.  I’ll let him tag along.  Who knows, I might even find a use for him” 

Maybe as an inhuman shield
.  He ought to be glad to take a few bullets for me.

I killed the connection and set the phone aside.

Naked, I went into my private bath to shower off the blood and gore that was sticking to me.  I made quick work of it, disliking the quiet from the extra-dimensional space that held my hot tub. 

Hmmm.  When did I become a social creature?

I toweled off and returned to my room.  Minutes later, dressed
in an all-black suit, I headed for the front door.  Osamu needed the limo so I only had my second Mustang, my project car, for transportation.  I didn’t want to risk it.  Besides, if Zero-T was going to be following me anyway,

I figured I might as well catch a ride with him.  I smiled. 

Let’s see you stay out of the next fight when you’re with me at ground zero.

I went outside and there was no trace of my destroyed car or the dead fey.  Zero-T stood just off the porch.  He held out the PPK I’d dropped earlier.  “You might need this.”

I nodded thanks, looked the gun over for signs of tampering, and made a mental note to replace the magazine with a fresh clip first chance I got. 

Can’t be too careful.

I strolled past him, heading for his car.  “You can drive, or give me your keys.”

“No one drives my baby, but me!”

I smiled.  “Thought you might say that.  Come on, I don’t have all day.”

He hurried to catch up as I crossed the lawn, sauntering straight for his Volvo C-70.  He passed me and moved around to the driver door.  I vaulted into the air and dropped into the back, my butt bouncing on the butterscotch leather seat.  Zero-T said nothing, but I sensed his displeasure at my cavalier treatment of his ride.  He slid into the driver seat, buckled up, and stared at me in the rearview mirror.  “Where to?”

“The Velvet Door.”

His eyes widened in the mirror, and then he looked away.  Everyone in the L.A. area knew of the master vampire and the bar she ran.  It was a neutral area where various preternatural factions could meet and deal with each other without warfare erupting. 

I smirked at the back of his shiny, bald head.  “First round’s on you.”