Demon's Daughter (Demon Outlaws) (28 page)

“What will you be doing?” someone asked, directing the question at Hunter.

Airie was curious about that, as well. The way his mouth hardened indicated he was no longer even faintly amused, and that had her worried. So did the way he still refused to look at her, despite her having chosen a position near the center of the room and in his direct line of vision.

“I intend to challenge the Demon Lord,” Hunter said. “If we take away their leader, they’ll lose any semblance of an organized attack. Demons don’t have much more liking for one another than they do for us, and they don’t fight well together. That’s our real advantage.”

Her concern had been justified. The walls and the ceiling of the saloon rippled and danced, leaving her dizzy and grasping at the back of a chair for support. Thankfully, the copper tray she carried was empty.

Hunter had seen her reaction. He partly rose in his chair, caught himself, and shifted the action so as to turn and lean across the table and whisper something to Blade.

Airie returned to the kitchen behind Sapphire, and with a tinny clatter, tossed the tray on a counter.

Sapphire turned to her.

“Pillar, the Godseekers’ leader, would like to speak with you privately,” the blonde girl said. “He said to say you would remember him because you set his boots on fire.” Fair eyebrows lifted in an unspoken query, but she did not ask about it. When Airie did not explain either, she continued. “He says a priestess wishes to join the battle against demons as your servant. What should I tell him?”

“Do you know the name of this priestess?” Airie asked.

“No.”

Loyalty to Hunter warned Airie she should send a refusal. This felt too clandestine. Only the possibility that the Godseeker and this priestess might seek a better solution, one that did not involve him behaving so foolishly, had her agreeing to it instead.

The goddess had said she would need to earn her place in this world. She would not earn it by pretending to be something she was not, or by bringing death. She did not want anyone to die. But it was Hunter she feared for the most, and she would do what she could in order to protect him.

Despite her prayers, the goddess remained silent. Speaking with a priestess, one who was willing to help, might give her the guidance she sorely needed right now.

“Ask the Godseeker when and where we can meet.”

…

The city gates remained closed, although a carefully screened few were allowed to pass.

Demons had not been idle the past few nights, and several settlements near the goddesses’ mountain had suffered heavy losses. Survivors had trickled into the city, seeking protection, and the guards at the gates were not without compassion.

Therefore, no one paid more than cursory attention to a lone man on foot entering through the city’s gates shortly before sundown. The Demon Lord drew the hood of his oilskin slicker forward, placing his face in shadow.

Come night, he intended to burn Freetown to the ground. Before he did that, he had to find the spawn. Once he located her and prevented her from calling the goddesses’ rain, he would set the city on fire from the inside.

As he moved through the streets, the inconsistencies surrounding her continued to eat at him. She was female. She could summon goddess rain. If she were his as well, spawn or not, it meant she was an immortal.

The Slayer would then have two things that belonged to him. That amulet he wore was the other. The existence of both caused the Demon Lord deep humiliation and pain.

He had crafted that amulet himself. He had given it to a goddess out of love so she would have added protection against his kind, and in return, she had discarded both the amulet and their child.

Now, the Slayer used his amulet to slaughter demons, which meant the Demon Lord owned the burden of those deaths. The Slayer would use his daughter against him, too, if given the chance.

The Demon Lord gravitated toward the city center and was rewarded with bits of conversation overheard in the streets. Mortals were rallying and mounting a defense.

The Slayer would be part of it. He would lead the Demon Lord to the spawn.

He found the saloon where they gathered to plan their strategy by following others. He then waited across the street from the saloon in the shadows, his hat pitched over his eyes so his face could not be seen. Only two mortals would recognize him in this form—Mamna and the Slayer. Neither would expect him here.

The sun set, and the shadows lengthened. Men came and went. The taste of their fear was what demons relished about battling mortals the most, and Freetown was thick with it tonight.

Suddenly, he straightened. A figure, tall and too slender to be a man, and wrapped to the boot tops in a long, hooded cape, slipped through a gate at the far side of the saloon and glanced furtively up and down the emptying street. She turned to her right and headed in the direction of the city’s outer wall.

The Demon Lord could not see her face.

But he did know that whoever she was, she was not mortal.

…

Hunter walked the walls of the city, staring at the night sky and waiting for demons, making certain to be seen by everyone who had turned out in defense of Freetown.

Godseekers had spent the remainder of the day going door to door, spreading a wide net throughout the city in order to recruit as many as possible who were willing to fight.

The numbers had been both surprising and heartening. The Godseeker, Pillar, had been correct. Word of Airie had spread, and with the Demon Slayer to fight for her, hopes had risen.

Hunter had not made amends with Airie before he left. He had not liked the way the men in the meeting had watched her—as if she, too, might be for hire—and he had not dealt with it well. Too many things could happen to her without him or Blade there to guard her. But she had promised him she would not leave the city, and he had also asked Ruby to watch over her for him because he did not completely trust that she would be safe.

Anticipation hummed through him. While he hated demons, and feared for Airie, he loved what fighting them did to him. He felt more alive. Invincible.

If he killed the Demon Lord, the remainder would have no leader, and he could hunt them to extinction.

He refused to think of what might happen if he did not win.

“Make sure the archers and the sharpshooters take careful aim,” Hunter said to the captain of the guards. “I’d hate to be shot by accident.”

The captain was a heavyset man, with a broad face and thick, fierce black eyebrows that met across the bridge of his nose. He was not in favor of Hunter’s plan. “The archers aren’t the ones you need to be worrying about.”

An alarm sounded as the first demons appeared on the horizon. Within minutes they circled overhead, well out of range of the weapons. High above, one demon broke away, diving swiftly at Hunter.

Hunter’s amulet flared a warning, but as he swung his sword, a volley of flaming arrows streaked trails of orange and yellow across the sky. The arrows bounced off the demon’s plating, showering thousands of rainbow-hued sparks in their wakes before falling harmlessly to earth.

It was enough of a display to show that the archers were as good as their word, and Hunter would have adequate protection when he faced the Demon Lord.

Hunter searched the sky.

Where was he?

Chapter Seventeen

Guilt lashed at Airie for slipping away from Hunter yet again without telling him where she was going, or why. He would not approve and would try to forbid it.

But Sapphire had promised to cover for her, and if Airie could help Hunter even in some small way, then it was worth the risk.

She had been told to meet Pillar near the tunnel entrance. When she got there, she saw that the guards, in position earlier that day, had now vanished. Uneasiness whispered cold words of warning up her spine. The street was dark here, and very empty. None of the city’s night watchmen walked the walls above. The demons were not expected to attack from this side of the city, so the men had been concentrated nearer the gates.

She heard movement behind her and turned, fists clenched, prepared to defend herself.

A small figure hobbled toward her. At first, Airie thought it was a child. Then the figure lifted the hood of its cloak, and she saw a telltale shaven head above a plain, broad-featured face. This, then, must be the priestess she had been asked to meet.

But where was the Godseeker, Pillar?

“Priestess?” Airie asked, addressing the woman. “You wished to speak with me?”

The priestess squinted at her in the darkness. Instead of answering, she clutched her chest at the base of her throat. As she did, the same sense of compulsion Airie had experienced the night the Godseekers called to her slammed through her.

Disbelief forced her back a step. The priestess was attempting to use an amulet against her.

Airie’s skin began to glow, bathing the ground at her feet in golden light, and the goddess awakened to whisper in her ear.
This one is not to be trusted. You do not ask for her help. You command it
.

No, Airie wanted to protest, but an ugly suspicion had already begun to form. Who was she to command a priestess?

“You dare try to use an amulet of the goddesses against me?” she demanded.

“Forgive me.” The priestess lowered her hand from the amulet. “I thought you were a demon.”

The goddess went still inside her, and Airie knew she had been insulted.

She stepped closer to the priestess, and the old woman recoiled. She was terrified of her, Airie saw, or rather, of what she believed her to be. But if she believed her to be a goddess, why was she so afraid?

Because she did not believe Airie to be a goddess, as Pillar had suggested. She thought of her as something else.

Airie’s hand went to the priestess’s throat, and she felt for the chain. She drew the priestess’s amulet into her palm and examined it.

Deep, tiny fissures marred the desert varnish encasing it. She could see it quite well in the glow from her skin. The amulet depicted a rainbow on fire, and looked very much like a combination of the ones Airie and Hunter both wore.

Airie did not understand the significance of the image, although she knew it caused the goddess a great deal of pain. She felt it.

She did not release the amulet. “Perhaps I am a demon.”

“You are no more demon than goddess,” the priestess said. “This amulet protects mortals from them all. With your help, it can be used to free the world of immortals forever.”

Don’t trust her,
the goddess whispered again, with greater insistence.

Airie did not know whom she could trust. Her suspicions were growing stronger, and pointing to conclusions she did not want to reach. She did know that she disliked the feel of the amulet, and did not trust it either. “What would I have to do to help?”

The priestess’s eyes hardened. “Heal the amulet. Give it life.”

“And who would become responsible for it if I do?”

“I’ve looked after it for years,” the priestess said. “I’ve used it to protect this city from demons. It belongs to me.”

This, then, was Mamna, the one responsible for the desperation on the faces of the women for sale in the market. She had sent Hunter to find Airie, and intended to turn her over to the Demon Lord. Hunter did not like her and called her evil.

And Hunter, Airie trusted. She clenched her fist and the amulet crumpled to dust. She sifted the dust through her fingers and let it trickle to the ground.

Mamna drew in a sharp breath.

“You are free of the immortals, Priestess,” Airie said. The goddess’s voice echoed with hers, both of them speaking as one. “No one protects you now. Betrayal brings its own rewards. Enjoy them.”

The presence of the goddess faded to nothing, along with the golden brightness of Airie’s skin.

The priestess’s fury, however, lay thick between them. Mamna knotted her fingers in the now-empty chain around her neck.

Pity for her replaced the certainty of a betrayal Airie knew had been committed. Whatever Mamna might have done, she remained a priestess. The goddesses had touched her and claimed her as their own. That would not change.

“If you pray for forgiveness, the goddesses will hear you,” Airie said.

The priestess’s lip curled in contempt. “You think I am the one who should pray for forgiveness? A demon spawned you and a goddess whore gave birth to you. You are an abomination. The goddesses fear you and the demons despise you. Your death could set the demons free from this world for good, Spawn. Your very existence holds them here. If not for you, they would be long gone, the same as the goddesses.” Her ugly face twisted into an even uglier smile.

“But the Demon Slayer never told you that, did he?”

…

The words slid easily from her tongue.

Mamna had hated the spawn on sight. Although she had her mother’s face, there could be no mistaking who had fathered her. She bore his eyes and, despite the ugly, ill-fitting clothing she wore, possessed his bearing. She was dark-haired, like him.

“My mother was a priestess, the same as you,” the spawn dared to say, but Mamna could read the uncertainty growing on her pretty face. This spawn might have the physical appearance of an immortal, but she did not possess their full strength.

She had destroyed Mamna’s amulet, however, and with it, any use Mamna might have had for her. “I watched you grow in your mother’s belly for months,” she said. “I heard the goddesses plan for your birth so that they could use you against your demon father. The priestess who raised you was left to ensure you were delivered to him when the time came. That time was the collapse of their mountain.”

The demon-dark eyes turned to red. “She would never do such a thing.”

Mamna leaned close, enjoying the pain she was inflicting. “When the Slayer arrived, she turned you over to him immediately, did she not? Did she fight for you? Warn you of danger? Was she faithful? Unwavering in her loyalty to the goddesses?”

“You’re lying,” the spawn said, but with even less conviction.

“Am I?”

“It’s so hard to tell,” a deep voice interrupted them from the darkness. “I find it easier to assume you are.”

The Demon Lord stepped away from the shadows, and the contents of Mamna’s stomach shifted at the expression on his face. Without her amulet, she had not been alerted to his proximity. Neither had she expected to see him here, inside the city walls, when the entire city anticipated an attack by him.

And never in mortal form, with its physical weaknesses.

The fear in Mamna shifted to angry frustration as a tear she could not contain slid down her cheek. She had wanted nothing more from him than that he favor her with a small portion of the kindness he had once shown to a goddess, but Mamna was not beautiful, and he was not kind. He was a demon, with no pity or thought but for his own superficial wants and desires. She had wasted much of her life harboring impossible hopes and dreams.

No more.

Desperation forced her thoughts to coalesce into a plan of action. She did not want to die and she would not make it easy for him. Her hand inched toward the pocket in the seam of her cloak.

“Would you really try to kill me?” the Demon Lord asked. He had flames in his eyes now, fed by unleashed hatred for her. “After everything we’ve meant to each other?”

He did not know how deeply those words wounded her. That he could speak them to her so carelessly made her hate him even more. He did not deserve her love and never had.

“I’ve meant nothing to you,” she said, “while you were once everything to me. I betrayed the goddesses for you. I would have done anything you asked of me for no more reward than the chance to serve you. Instead, you’ve spent years blinded by the loss of a whore who cared so little for you that she abandoned both you and your child. Good riddance to her. To both of you.”

She fumbled for her pistol.

The Demon Lord raised his hand, palm out, but she managed one shot at the spawn before the flames of his fire engulfed her.

Pain and sheer terror wrenched shrieks from what remained of her soul.

Along with her own screams, she heard those of the spawn. Rain began to fall, faster and harder, and for an instant, Mamna thought it might save her. Then the rain turned to billows of steam, and all she could see or feel was fire.

As death claimed her, she prayed the goddesses would not be waiting for her.

…

The Demon Lord watched Mamna burn.

She had never wanted to serve him, as she’d tried to claim. She wished to manipulate and control, and had lied to him about the existence of his daughter for years.

The realization forced him to consider the possibility of other lies he had accepted too readily, and of truths perhaps spurned. He turned his back on the dying priestess to examine his daughter.

She looked so much like her mother that his breath hitched at the unexpectedness of it. Too much of the past had bared itself already today. He did not care to see or hear any more.

The girl needed to be taught her place.

Beyond the wall, near the city’s gates, the first of his demons dove from the heavens, a great shadow that plunged in a free fall before twisting to one side and soaring away. An answering wave of fiery arrows from the ramparts dragged streaming tails of yellow across the deepening indigo sky.

The city was undefended on this side, dark and silent. It would not remain so for long, once the attack began in earnest.

The burst of rain had stopped. The Demon Lord tossed back the hood of his slicker. “This is my territory,” he said. “You do not call goddess rain here. What is your name?”

She did not flinch away as he’d intended her to. Dark emotions lashed at him instead, overriding the gentler, goddess-driven ones behind her defiant attempt to save the ugly priestess from his fire.
Anger. Contempt
. This daughter despised him, which he found intriguing. Demons did not show fear, and she had none.

Her answer came willingly. “Airie,” she said.

Rainbows and lightning
. The meaning of her name was a slap in the face. The rainbow pendant she wore around her neck dealt another harsh blow. It had once been offered to him, and he had thrown it back at its owner.

He reached out and touched it now, rubbing it between his fingers, not wishing for her to see how much she’d unsettled him. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

Her unwavering, fearless eyes held his. “From my mother. She told me to wear it, and to think of her often, and more importantly to remember that I was born out of love.” She twisted the pendant from his fingers as if afraid he would somehow taint it, and tucked it inside her cloak. “At least I was born out of love on her part.”

His throat ached. Allia had given this token, once meant for him, to their daughter. She’d had some true feelings for him, then, or she would not have done so. Yet she had also allowed the Slayer to take possession of the amulet he had given to her, and that was not to be forgiven.

The west wind had risen with the arrival of his demons, dispersing the remainder of Mamna’s bitter, smoldering ashes before it as it wound its way through the narrow streets of Freetown and past the tightly shuttered houses.

At least I was born out of love on her part.
He did not dare to dwell on the meaning of those words.

The Demon Lord could not decide what to do with this daughter, and he was not used to indecision. He had planned to kill her. He still might, but his curiosity regarding her was far from satisfied.

“It’s possible that it’s as the priestess said, and your existence is what keeps demons trapped here within the confines of time.” He frowned. “It’s equally possible that your death would be my destruction. Her words are not to be trusted.”

“No more than yours should be.”

Flames rippled beneath her golden skin and crackled in her blazing eyes. Lifting a hand, a great orange and yellow ball of fire formed in her palm. She drew her arm back and released it with a great deal of force.

Well, well. Fire as well as rain
. There could be no doubt she had demon in her, and goddess, too. She had been aptly named.

Rather than dodge her fire, he called it to him so that it embraced them both.