Demon's Hunger (9 page)

"What? You mean if you were amorously occupied? I'd have disappeared before anyone knew I was here. This place is big enough that I could get lost for a week." Darqun laughed. "Or maybe I'd have hidden in the corner and watched."

"You're an asshole."

"Yeah." Darqun reached over Javier's shoulder and helped himself to the remaining half of the grilled vegetable and goat cheese sandwich on the plate. "
Beamed
myself in here? You've been watching too much classic TV." He chewed, swallowed. "How do you eat this vegetarian shit all the time? A man needs meat.
Meat
."

"I'm a sorcerer, not a man."

"A sorcerer needs meat." Darqun sent a flash of light from his fingertips, and the smell of grilled chicken laced the air. "Now that's a sandwich."

With a grunt, Javier shot him a look. "Take a page out of Ciarran's book. Learn a little restraint."

Darqun took every opportunity to use his magic, to stretch his wings, so to speak. He'd spent centuries trapped in a dark pit, robbed of sight and sound and magic. It was the same reason he hated the quiet, hated to be alone, the same reason he hung with Javier or one of the other sorcerers just about every waking moment. The only time he didn't was when he had a girl with him. Usually a different one every night.

Grabbing a spare chair, Darqun dragged it over. "Vivien Cairn's house erupted into an inferno this morning," he said.

Oookay
. That was unexpected news.

"With a little help from a full-blooded demon."

Javier sat a little straighten "What the hell?"

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly." Darqun wolfed the last bite of the sandwich. "And it turns out Dr. Cairn owns six red velvet gris-gris bags."

Even more unexpected, and faintly creepy. What were the odds that the forensic pathologist they approached to examine their charm bags just happened to have a little collection of her own?

"Crazy coincidence, bizarre hobby, or relevant fact?" Javier's fingers were already flying across the keyboard, searching for anything he could find on Vivien Cairn. Break through a firewall here. Hack a password there. No worries.

"I don't believe in coincidences," Darqun said, his tone flat.

"Bizarre hobby?"

"Yeah. Maybe. But there were
hybrids
crawling all over her place, and that was a full-blooded demon in her basement this morning. Dain smoked it while Ciarran and I took out a half-dozen
hybrids
in the cornfield and at the tree farm."

Javier stopped typing and turned to stare at Darqun. He gave a low whistle. "Heavy artillery. Gotta ask—what were they doing there?"

"I thought they followed us there. Dain agreed… at first. But somewhere along the way, he became convinced otherwise. Now I'm not so sure, either. Something feels off. Dain figures they were there already, looking for her charm bags." He paused, gave a low laugh. "I figure Dain's interested in
her
charms, if the way he went off like a bomb is any indication. He did the whole you-no-touch-my-woman thing."

Javier opened his mouth, closed it. Darqun had to be kidding, except his expression was straight.

"Dain's not exactly the type to go caveman over a woman," Javier said. "Hell, he's got himself locked down so goddamned tight, he barely tolerates friendships. No way he'd let down his guard. Not our Dain. Especially after what went down with the Ancient. You sure you weren't seeing one of his illusions? He does love to conjure."

"Nope. He went feral over her."

Javier digested that; he had no idea what to make of it. "If Dain's right and the demon was there for Dr. Cairn's gris-gris bags, how did it know she had them?" he asked.

"Got no clue." Darqun shrugged.

Narrowing his eyes, Javier focused on the pounding beat of the music. He let his thoughts spin until confusion gave way to conviction.

His skin prickled.

He had a hunch, a crazy one, but something in Darqun's story had him thinking…

"What was in those charm bags, Dar?"

"There was no time to look, but I'm guessing pretty much the same shit we found in the gris-gris Dain brought back from New Orleans and the one he nabbed at the Ancient's the night Clea almost died. Human bones, skin, hair. Colored stones. Dust. There's a hint of sorcerer magic about each of the bags, but there's an even stronger demon aura clinging to this stuff. It feels like there's a remnant of demon magic in the bones and sorcerer warding around the bags."

Little bags of bones and skin and hair. Little bits of a dead human. It struck a chord. Javier lifted his feet and swivelled his chair around. Did it again and again. He brought his foot down, slamming the chair to a stop midspin.

"Bones from the same human or different humans?" he asked. He definitely did not like where his thoughts were leading him.

"No clue. They're pretty old, and I don't want to go poking through them just in case I destroy something. I figure Dr. Cairn's the specialist, so she's the one to examine them."

"Where are the bags now?"

"Dain kept two, divvied the rest up between me and Ciarran. Said something about not wanting them all together in one place unless there were a couple of us around to babysit them."

Javier winced. Oh, man. He definitely had not wanted to be right about this one. But Dain was obviously thinking along the same lines. "Dain's right. You have them with you?"

"Yeah. Burning holes in my pockets. I came straight here or I would have locked them up somewhere safe."

"Good. That's good." Javier swallowed. "If you go to Ciarran's or Dain's, don't take the bags with you. Lock 'em up in your vault. Set wards and spells. Keep those bags apart. Don't put them all together in one place until you hear from me."

"You thinking what Dain's thinking?"

"I dunno what Dain's thinking, man.
I'm
thinking something pretty crazy. I'm thinking that the goddamned demons have a pile of those bags sitting on a shelf somewhere, all nice and ready to go. I'm thinking the Ancient's fingerprint is all over this, like a puppet master. And I'm thinking we're in for a load of trouble if they get their hands on the rest of the bones."

Darqun leaned in, looking over Javier's shoulder at the screen. "You remember what I told you on the phone this morning, about the caduceus and the killings and the doctor I met?"

"Yeah." Javier could feel Darqun's tension, hear the edge to his tone.

"Everything's connected, my man. These freaky little bags, the burnt demon bone Dain found. The Solitary." Darqun paused, then continued. "And I'm betting those murdered humans are connected somehow, too."

With a soft
tap-tap-tap
, Javier's fingers flew over the three keyboards, and a whole bunch of ideas swirled around in his thoughts.

Frankenstein, Golem. Re-animation.

Certainty coalesced, a cold, ugly ball in the center of his gut.

"Blood sacrifice," he said. "I'm betting the demons plan to use what's in those charm bags and maybe the blood of those murdered humans to raise the goddamned dead."

Darqun's breath hissed from between his teeth. "The question is, who do they plan to raise, and why?"

Rick Strasser rolled the bill into a narrow tube and snorted the white line he'd cut so neatly on the glass tabletop. With a leer, he offered the bill to the girl.

She shook her head, smiled. "I don't need it. I just need you. Can I have you, Rick? Can I suck you dry?"

"Yeah, baby." Damn, she was hot. All that sleek dark hair, and that body. Legs and ass, and her breasts barely covered by that flimsy little black top. No bra.

Sashaying over less than ten minutes after Rick had arrived at Illusion, she'd agreed to come home with him. Agreed? Hell, she'd insisted—one more trophy in Rick's poorly kept tally.

"Come on," she said, running her tongue over her lower lip, her gaze dropping to his crotch. "I'm tired of waiting. I want you. Now."

The coke rushed through him, making him feel like frigging Superman. He pulled her to him, kissed her sloppily. His nails scraped her skin, scoring the tender flesh. She didn't seem to care about his lack of finesse. Good. Maybe she liked it rough; he sure did.

Heart chuffing like a little engine on a big hill, Rick shoved at his pants, helped her help him out of his shirt. She was moaning, purring, and he hadn't even touched her yet, hadn't done much more than tear off her shirt. Man, she was hot for it. He backed her to the couch, but when he tried pushing her down, she balked.

"I want to be on top. Let me be on top." Her voice a breathy whisper.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure," he mumbled, so hard, wanting it so bad. He didn't care if she was on top, on the bottom, hanging from the frigging ceiling, so long as she let him shove it in her.

The leather of his couch was cool and smooth at his back, and she was as hot as a sauna climbing up his front.

"Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah." He hissed and closed his eyes as she sank down on him, taking him inside her, hotter than frigging lava. She started to move, slowly at first, then faster. He rocked up to meet each thrust. The coke kept him high, and it kept him hard, holding off his release.

His head fell back; the room started spinning, and suddenly he didn't feel so good. She was pulling him into her. Pulling him out of himself. Taking something from him…

"Hey!" Did he manage the protest or just think he did?

Something wasn't right. He didn't feel…
right
She was moving, harder, rougher, laughing. She was…

Fuck, what the hell was she doing?

Squinting up at her, he saw the glitter of the diamond necklace at her throat.
A
… the letter
A
. Her name—did he know her name? Had he bothered to ask?

Anne? Amber? Ariel?

He tried to lift his hands, tried to feel her waist, to stop her, to push her off. Only he couldn't. Couldn't move. Couldn't speak. He could only feel. Feel the cold inching through him, terrifying, the warmth leaching away. Like he was bleeding, only he wasn't. Was he?

Rick tried to focus, tried to see her, but the room had gone so dark and hazy. Panic surged like an acid wave, burning his gut and his throat. His vision had narrowed to a tunnel, and all he could see was… fuck.
Fuck
. He tried pushing it off, but his arms wouldn't move.

Getitojf. Getitoff. Getitoff.

The girl was gone, and in her place, crouched over him with yellowed talons and spittle-flecked lips, was a hideous thing, a pruned hag with twisted features and lank, greasy hair. Glowing eyes and a vicious sneer.

A monster.

What are you?

The lips twisted in a parody of a smile. Blackened teeth. Lesioned gums. "I am your fantasy and your nightmare. I am succubus. I am death."

It cackled like a frigging witch, and Rick twitched and bleated, desperate to move, to get away, frozen in place like a pinned bug, while the
thing
writhed and moaned and pumped up and down. Scuttling over him like a cockroach, it thrust its face close. He could smell rot, decay. Death.

He felt dry, desiccated, like his
life
had been sucked out of him.

With a sweep of its purple tongue across its lips, it reared back, raked a knife-edged talon across his belly. He tried to scream, but no sound came out. There was only the endless echo of pain and horror in his mind. Against the backdrop of rap music pumping from his stereo came a vile sucking sound, like a vacuum seal torn open, and then another, louder.

The monster raised its head, shimmered, changed, becoming once more the gorgeous girl he'd picked up at the club. Her lips were smeared with blood, and Rick gave scream after soundless scream as she pulled out glistening loops of his intestines, red and wet.

She reached up into him, high on the left, and ripped out a dripping organ. The pain and the hot burn that followed was unbearable.

"Your spleen," she hummed. "A lovely, delicious little bag of blood." She smiled. "I sealed your artery. Wouldn't want you to bleed out and die too quickly. I can only claim the best parts while you're alive. Besides, I like to savor my food."

Sobbing, choking, Rick snuffled and begged. No words. No sound.
Please. Please
.

She pulled a length of his intestine taut, her movements careful, delicate. Baring her teeth, she tore out a chunk, and Rick felt it. God, he felt it.

"Prairie oysters are a delicacy in some places," she said, reaching down to stroke his testicles.

Rick felt the flow of his urine, hot against his skin.

With a faint slurp, she continued her meal.