Devil May Care (19 page)

T
he back rooms
at The Voodoo Lounge resembled individual lounges. I didn’t know what went on behind the closed doors, and didn’t want to. I heard a few growls as we passed by and battled my imagination to ignore them. Carol-Anne shepherded, Jerry, me, and the virtually unconscious Stefan, into one of those rooms and closed the door on us, saying she’d let us know once she’d discovered what had happened to Akil.

By now, the arrival of the Institute Enforcers a few streets away had scattered most of the club’s demon clientele. They were smart enough to know when to scurry back into hiding, returning to their pseudo-normal lives.

Stefan lay motionless on a couch, blanket draped over him, unfocused gaze fixed on a point beyond the wall. I watched the rise and fall of his chest from my position in the corner. Jerry leaned against the wall beside the one door, arms crossed. His tattooed face was a grim mask. I couldn’t help feeling I’d done something terrible. Stefan was dangerous. Without control, he could get himself and others killed. I’d only wanted to protect him, to give him room to breathe. He’d spent years in his demon form, day and night, fighting off a world that wanted him dead. I knew what it was like to let chaos control you, to feel the demons watching you every second, every minute, of every hour, but I didn’t know the horror of trying to survive there, not as he had. I’d always been protected by owners. Life had been hard—a freakin’ understatement—but it had been my life, and I knew nothing else. Stefan didn’t have that luxury. He’d gone through the veil as a mortal man who happened to have a demon half. He hadn’t known what it would take to survive there. He didn’t know the rules, the games. And his demon would have thrived.

I lowered my gaze to the tiled floor. From the information I’d gleaned while working my way through the ranks of the Enforcers, I knew Stefan had been raised by the Institute. He’d probably learned how to shape and throw ice daggers before he could walk. He hadn’t had a childhood. He’d been molded, tuned, honed into a demon-killing instrument, but he’d always been human, his mortal self firmly in the driver’s seat. Beyond the veil, in the netherworld, his demon would have broken through his restraint within a few steps. You can’t stop it. They know they’re home. Stefan would have needed his demon to protect his fragile human flesh. He would have fought the hordes of lesser demons with everything he had. The battles would have raged only until the demons pulled back to regroup. In that moment, Stefan would have realized that his demon had control and liked it.

Imagine the ability to let go of everything. To step back from the expectations of life, let it all slip through your fingers as though none of it mattered. Your doubts, your fears, your weaknesses, all of them falling like grains of sand into the wind. It feels like freedom, but it’s an illusion. The lure of chaos is a powerful one, perhaps more so to a half-blood, as our human halves are geared for control and restraint. Chaos whispers to us in the darkest of hours, in the depths of night. It promises the blissful indifference of freedom, and all we need do is let the demon win.

Stefan would have fought it. He would have tried to rein it in, but after days or weeks, his strength failed him. His demon bewitched him, coiled his human half around its glistening claws and crushed the vestiges of control in the palm of its hand. In order to survive, his demon had controlled every aspect of him. With every demon he must have slaughtered, his lust for chaos would have grown. Until it became all he knew.

I’d had no choice. If Stefan couldn’t control himself, nobody could.

And I understood now why the Institute had injected me with PC34 all those months ago. Adam had been right. I was dangerous. When they’d dragged me out of the marina waters, they were handling the human equivalent of a nuclear bomb. They’d had no choice.

I didn’t thank them for it, and Stefan wouldn’t thank me. I’d torn out the half of him that had kept him alive in the netherworld. He’d lost the power, the protection, and the blissful ignorance that chaos provides, and I’d been the one to steal it from him.

I bowed my head, hiding my face from Jerry. And to add insult to injury, Stefan had gone through all of that for me, and what had I done? I’d thrown his sacrifice in his face by bringing Akil back through the veil.

Akil burst through the door in a flurry of motion, barely breaking his stride. Bloodied shirt untucked, face twisted in a grimace of pain, eyes ablaze, he scooped up Stefan. “Get up, Muse. We’re leaving.”

I scrambled to my feet and helped him lift Stefan. “I know where Stefan will be safe.”

Akil nodded, teeth gritted. He threw Jerry an acknowledging glance and slipped my hand into his. Did he tremble? I met his eyes and saw the embers swirling in their darkness. He squeezed my hand gently. The room fell out of focus. The anchoring touch of his power whirled around me, twisted up my legs, and coiled around my waist. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the dark tendrils of ethereal energy enveloping me. Darkness dragged me down. Akil’s power smothered and embraced me. I locked a location and an image in my mind, one I knew Akil would remember.

Lake house.

A
kil’s power
unraveled around me outside the white-clapboard lake house. I tasted the mountain air on my tongue, brisk and fresh. The scent of pine cleared my lumbering thoughts and roused memories from the last time I’d been here. Hellhounds, gunshots, calling another world’s worth of power from beyond the veil, the memory of Akil running a sword through Sam’s chest—it hadn’t happened here, but I’d discovered the memories slumbering in a sword and my perception of Akil changed forever. This place had made a lasting impression. Even the wind through the trees whispered a reluctant greeting.

Akil stumbled beside me. He fell to his knees in the mud. Stefan’s weight threw me off balance. I staggered and heaved Stefan’s dead weight against me. Jeez, he was heavier than he looked. I grunted a curse, leaned into Stefan, puffed my hair out of my face, and offered Akil my hand.

He took it without meeting my eyes and dragged himself back to his feet. Sharing Stefan between us, we managed to get him inside the house and up to a bedroom. Akil left me with Stefan without a word. What was I meant to do with him? Stefan just lay there. Every couple of breaths, he’d blink, but otherwise he lay still and silent. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t stay with him, not after it had all been my fault. Nica would know what to do. I would need to get in touch with her. She’d be able to help.

Descending the newly replaced staircase—a rampaging Hellhound had wiped out the last one—I walked through the open-plan lounge area into the kitchen with its wall of panoramic windows, also newly replaced for similar reasons. The view beyond the glass and down to the water’s edge had taken my breath away last time I’d been there, and this time was no different. I was city girl at heart, and just the amount of inky black night sky with its countless shining stars rendered me speechless. The milky light from the crescent moon rippled across the vast expanse of lake, rimmed by towering pine trees as far as the eye could see.

“Muse.”

I jumped and spun. Akil sat slumped in a chair beside the dining table. In the low light, his eyes smoldered. He clutched at his chest where a seeping wetness soaked through his shirt.

I moved to his side and eased his hand away, so I could unbutton and open the shirt. His eyes searched my face. His breathing sounded labored. He couldn’t summon his element here. All of the interior walls in the house had been covered in the restrictive symbols, blocking our abilities. I peeled the blood-soaked shirt away from his chest, revealing two puncture holes in his left side. The wound on his right where Stefan had stabbed him still gaped, but it didn’t appear to be bleeding. Akil must have read the fear in my eyes.

“It will heal...” His deep voice bubbled, words slurred behind a liquescent drawl.

I moved around him and pinched my lips together. Blood plastered his shirt to his back. “Lean forward.” He obliged slowly and waited, holding his breath as I slid his shirt off his shoulders and down his back. An exit wound had torn a ragged hole in his lower back. “Jesus...” There was so much blood that the air tasted like copper. “Akil, you still have a bullet in you.”

“I know.” He dropped back in the seat with a growl that should probably have been a cry of pain. “It’s most… uncomfortable.”

“If it’s an Institute bullet, it could reduce your ability to heal yourself.” I’d once watched Stefan empty a clip into Akil, and he’d got up from that, as right as rain within a few hours. Something had changed. Either Akil was too weak to repair himself, or the Institute had been using bullets designed specifically to nullify elemental power. I’d heard rumors about special bullets but had never seen them. Ryder would know.

Akil closed his eyes. His right hand shook as he rested it on the dining table beside him. He fought to breathe. I saw it in the stuttered rise and fall of his chest. “Akil...” A sudden, horrible thought trampled on all the others. “Can you die?”

His lips twitched, and he opened his eyes. The embers were gone, and those eyes, those soft hazel eyes, belonged to just a man. They widened with surprise and sadness.

He breathed hard. “Not the death you’re thinking of.”

I didn’t believe him. I’d come to expect lies from Akil. Perhaps it was the quiet resignation in his voice, but the barely concealed fear in his eyes sealed it. “We have to get the bullet out.”

Panic tried to muscle its way into my thoughts, but I refused to give it leverage. Instinct kicked in. I shoved my emotions to the back of my crowded thoughts and focused. “Okay, right, tell me if you think you’re gonna pass out.” I tugged open the cutlery drawer and upended it on the countertop. Knives, spoons, and forks clattered across the counter and fell beside my feet. I grabbed a few knives and tested their edges. Did I know what I was doing? No. But I wasn’t letting him die on me. It didn’t matter if our definitions of death differed. Akil didn’t die. That was a fact of life. The elements don’t die. They fizzle out, they change shape, they dissipate, but the energy is always there. I knew what he was saying. He might not die, but he’d change. He’d be gone from me. Without Akil, Damien’s repulsive seed would root inside me.

“I’m weak, Muse.” He sighed. “This vessel is tired.”

“Shut up.” I glared at him. “At least put your hand on the wound, apply some pressure, stem the blood flow. Do something.”

He obeyed and then after a few beats said quietly, “They say you’re my weakness.”

“Since when have you cared what anyone says?” I searched for something sharp, long, and thin, but all I could find was a barbecue fork. My surgeon’s tools consisted of a knife and a barbecue fork. It was hopeless.

“But they’re wrong. You’re my strength.”

I looked at Akil and frowned. He smiled. Goddamn him. “You aren’t dying on me. Okay? Do you understand? You don’t get to screw up my life and then die. Not until I’m finished with your sorry ass. Get up.” I tossed the implements aside, crossed the kitchen, and caught his free hand. “Get. Up.”

He peered up at me, tiredness tugging his eyes closed.

I slapped him hard. The loud crack snatched a snarl from his lips and stung my hand. “Get out of that chair. We’re going for a walk.”

“Muse…” His voice trailed off. I cracked a fist across his jaw and received a snarling growl in response. His eyes widened, embers flaring.

I tugged on his arm. “If I can’t cut the bullet out, I can burn it out. So get off that damn chair, and pull yourself together. You’re supposed to be an ageless creature of chaos, and all I’m getting right now is sulking city boy.”

Laughter brightened his eyes, but the pain seized the sound before it could reach his lips. He rose, wooden and awkward, and fell against me.
Keep it together,
I warned myself. Seeing Akil like this, vulnerable and barely able to stand, gnawed away at my subconscious thoughts, eating into the most fragile parts of my mind. Yes he was a killer. But damn him, I owed him so much. Akil wasn’t meant to be weak. He was a force of nature. A constant. He would always be there like the sun, the stars. He couldn’t leave me. It wasn’t possible.

I half dragged, half shoved him out the front door. When he fell, I scooped him up and cursed him. Blood coated my hands, making my grip on him slippery. I struggled to hold him. Several times, we almost tumbled together.

We managed a few staggering steps off the track and into the tree cover before he fell and refused to get back up. He rolled onto his back, eyelids drooping. I planted my feet and snapped the reins of control inside my head, freeing my demon. She knew what was happening, knew my fear, what it meant probably better than I did. I flung my hands down and summoned the heat from the earth at my feet. Energy flowed up. My demon wrapped me in her scorched embrace and sealed my vulnerable humanity away behind her fiery armor.

He can’t die.
I didn’t know if she was saying it or I was, but we agreed. I needed him to free me of Damien. He wasn’t dying on me. Not today.

I tore open the veil with a jagged, need-driven thought and reached beyond. The writhing flow of heat came willingly. Fire and light whisked around me in a whirlwind of chaos. I could have taken more, could have lost myself in the madness of desire for power, but the human heart of me pulled back from the abyss.

Akil watched with dull eyes. The reflection of flames danced in those dark orbs, but his own fire had vanished. Panic wrapped its icy grip around me.
I’m too late.
I dropped to my knees and planted scorched hands on Akil’s chest. Flames washed across his body in an undulating ripple of heat. The tear in the veil poured power through me and into him.

It seemed as though hours passed, but could only have been minutes. Akil snapped open his eyes. His chest expanded. His body arched, and right before my eyes—beneath my hands—his human body dissolved into the mass of obsidian muscle that was Mammon. The Prince of Greed latched both hands onto mine and fixed ageless eyes on me. I faltered. The power funneling through me stuttered.