Raw Power: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Demon-Hearted Book 1) (16 page)

That reminded me of the other thing I'd wanted clarification on. Glancing between Joe and Amundsen, I licked my lips pensively. “Yeah, so... what happens if they win? Kubo told me they were working to, uh... raise some kind of god? Or something? What, exactly, do we stand to lose here?”

At this, Joe craned his neck around me and looked to Amundsen, guffawing incredulously. Then, he glanced up at me, the cluelessness showing through in my wide-eyed expression, and laughed even harder. Settling down, he pointed at me with his thumb and nodded to Amundsen. “Wait a minute... wait a minute, you mean to tell me that he doesn't know yet?”

TWENTY-TWO

Amundsen had had enough of our little chat and broke it up immediately with a clap of his hands. As if the preceding conversation hadn't taken place at all, he walked up and took me lightly by the shoulders, hoping to maneuver me out of the infirmary. “Well, Joe, we need to let you rest. Get some sleep. Mona's treatment should fully heal your arm within a day.” With a nod, he started for the door.

Not that I budged.

“Wait a minute,” I said, raising my voice. “What, specifically, do I not know yet?” They were keeping me in the dark about everything, but this tidbit of Joe's sounded more than a little important.

Joe demurred, chuckling to himself and closing his eyes, feigning sleep. “Never mind, tex. They like keeping us in the dark about shit. We're like government employees around here-- we only get told things on an as-needed basis. Forget I said anything, Lucy.”

Nostrils flared, it took everything in me not to reach out and punch him across the chin. “Whatever, man,” I said, turning and storming out of the room behind Amundsen. The secrecy was getting to be too much. It was damn insulting, in fact. If they didn't want to spill their deepest, darkest secrets, well, that was one thing. No one was asking Amundsen about his sexual fetishes or bathroom habits. Stuff that actually concerned me, though? They had zero excuse to keep such information from me, and I was getting mighty tired of their tight-lipped policies. If they wanted to keep me on board, they'd have to spill it. And soon.

Amundsen smoothed out the front of his jacket and led me back into the small elevator. We rode down to the first floor lobby. Laughing to himself, he extended a hand to shake. “It's been good seeing you, Lucian. Let me know if you need anything. Chief Kubo will be in touch soon, I'm sure. Thank you for your hard work today, also.”

I didn't accept his hand, though. I looked at him like he'd just shot my dog, instead.

“You guys have some explaining to do.” My voice echoed in the lobby. “I like you, Mr. Amundsen. I worked for you a while before all of this and never asked you any damn questions. But now I have some serious misgivings about this little arrangement of ours, and all I'm asking for is a bit of transparency. If you want me to stay onboard, you're going to have to give me more to work with. What was Joe talking about up there? What don't I know? What are the witches working towards?” I was red in the face, pleading.

Amundsen smiled politely and withdrew his hand, placing them both behind his back and pacing towards the front door. “Joe was not mistaken when he said that information within our organization is dispensed on an as-needed basis, Lucian. Ours is not an organization that places value in transparency. I hope you'll forgive me but that's all the time I have tonight for fielding your questions.” He motioned to the sleepy doorman and the front door opened. “Have a good night.” Amundsen turned and walked away, disappearing around the corner.

I stood there, in front of the door, seething. Shooting the guard a dirty look, I slowly exited, marching into the cool night with more questions than I'd arrived with. They were going to keep me in the dark. No matter who I asked or how much I pressed, they weren't going to tell me anything I didn't absolutely need to know.

Spitting on the stone steps of the entryway, I sprinted across the parking lot and made a running jump over the black metal gates.

***

I walked the streets for a while during those last hours before the morning sun reared its head. I was feeling like shit, agitated and lonely. These Veiled Order guys were keeping me clueless, completely, and almost seemed to enjoy doing it. I wasn't valuable enough to them to warrant real politeness or even a proper answer to my straightforward questions. I was chopped liver, disposable.

Wheeling around downtown on my way back home and feeling awfully lonesome, I had half a mind to find a little company, a girl to take home with me. It occurred to me that all of the bars were closed, though, with all of the cute young things having wandered back to their places in a drunken stupor. There would be no getting lucky tonight, unfortunately. Realizing this, I set my sights on the next best thing.

A ham and cheese omelette at Waffle House.

I sauntered up towards the brightly-lit, yellow building through an alley that reeked of fresh vomit and the urine of bar-hoppers.

Not exactly the kind of smells that rouse the appetite.

I was within forty or so feet of the entrance when I sensed something behind me. It was a weird kind of feeling, like a single finger had brushed up against the hairs on the back of my neck. Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed someone following me through the alley.

A black cat.

It was by itself, a small, thin little thing with matted fur. It mewed softly, its paws touching down on the moist concrete very quietly, its tail raised and yellow eyes fixed on me. I paused, watching it for a time, and found that it stopped, too, when it noticed me looking at it.

“Scram,” I said. “I haven't got any handouts for ya, cat.”

 
The cat's gaze narrowed and I almost thought, with an inward chuckle, that it seemed to
understand
me.

Taking a step back and throwing out my arms suddenly, I made a barking noise and tried to scare it off.

The cat didn't budge, didn't seem in the least bit concerned with me. “Man,” I muttered. “The strays are getting pretty ballsy these days.”

I turned and started again towards Waffle House, but not before glimpsing another new arrival in the alleyway before me. Standing about twenty feet away, near the back of the restaurant, I spotted a little girl. She stood in the center of the alley, her white dress in tatters and her face paler than the moonlight that drifted down from above. I squinted and got a better look at her face, noticing that her eyes were wholly blank, like white billiard balls, and almost as large.

A persistent black cat and a kid with huge, fucked-up eyes corner some guy in an alley outside a Waffle House.

It was like the start of a bad joke.

And it sure as hell wasn't just a coincidence.

Carefully I placed my hands in my pockets, wanting to look relaxed and casual. If these things were familiars like I thought they were, then I didn't want to rush into a fight and provoke their masters. These two might've been following me for a while, letting members of the coven know my exact position. How many witches were trailing me? Were they nearby? Would the witches attack me in public, gang up on me?

Noting my surroundings, I realized that a back alley near a Detroit Waffle House at almost five in the morning hardly constitutes a “public” space. Lots of shady shit went down in such alleys at all hours of the day; if I got attacked by witches here, the only ones who'd see it would be the shambling drunks or prostitutes that haunted the back streets. People that no one would ever believe.

Not liking my odds, I doubled back towards the cat.

The way I saw it, I'd rather drop-kick a little cat and get away than end up punching another one of those roach-infested meat puppets.

The cat gave up only a bit of ground, backing towards the other side of the alley as I approached it. Its eyes never lingered, the yellow spheres glowing in the low light and dissecting me with a furtive interest. From behind me I could hear the pitter-patter of bare, child-sized feet against the wet cement.

The kid was coming up on my six.

I was hoping to jump over the cat and make a break for it around the corner, when suddenly I was stopped in my tracks. My legs went numb, then refused to move as something fixed me into place. I was like a screw wedged into the cement, my legs held close together and incapable of movement.

Stuck. Pinned. Held fast.

I gulped, recalling vividly what'd happened to me the last time I'd been frozen in place by something unseen. It'd been an enchantment outside the warehouse, hours ago. It'd been a hell of a spell, a trap that'd run my body through all over with black spikes like some hateful cactus. The present feeling of immobilization was very much the same, though no spikes materialized. As I waited nervously in this spot, the black cat and ghostly girl scurrying out of the alley and vanishing from sight, I heard a series of heavier footfalls approaching me.

At my feet, I noticed that the concrete had been stained with black ash. I was standing in a circle, hastily-scrawled, and its outer reaches had been inscribed with rough, angular symbols. Like an idiot, I'd been too focused on the two familiars to see it on the ground before me and had walked right into it. I tried to move my feet, to scuff up the markings, but they were clamped down against the ground with unbelievable force.

I wasn't going anywhere.

Whoever it was walking down that alley had me right where they wanted me.

And I didn't have anyone to help me this time.

No Joe, to light everything on fire.

No Isabella, to contort her fingers and make me invisible.

No Kubo, to throw around his fancy, magical slips of paper.

I braced myself as a dark shape lumbered into the alley before me.

TWENTY-THREE

The cloaked hag muttered to herself.

Standing a good foot shorter than me, she steadied herself against the wall of the alley and cast a single, grotesque eye up towards me from beneath the edge of her vast, black hood.

It was one of the witches, all right. Her waxen face was illuminated by the far-off glow of the Waffle House. I watched as her eyes dropped to the magic circle on the ground, and as her lips crinkled in the corners, forming what I took to be a smile. Her lips were like two earthworms, their bodies rubbing up against one another, while a small laugh grew in her throat.

“Well,” said the croaking thing, approaching me until she'd come uncomfortably close, “let's see what it is I've caught.” The witch reached out and took my arm, turning it so that my wrist was facing her.

I let her have it. Not because I couldn't have overpowered her, but because I was too stunned to protest. This hideous thing was running its long, clawed fingers against the inside of my forearm, purring and squinting as if looking to conjure up my veins like charmed cobras. Finally, she set two fingers against the center of my wrist and closed her eyes.

In the next moment the bitch reared back and fell against the wall with wide eyes, stammering but unable to form a proper sentence.

Giving my arm a shake and trying to free it of the sensation her touch had produced, I grimaced. “What do you want with me?”

From a half-crouch she surveyed me cautiously, eyes trembling in their sunken sockets. “Y-you,” she finally managed, “are a demon.”

“Well, obviously,” was the best I could come up with, sporting a slight grin. “But thanks for noticing.”

Her breathing kicked into overdrive. I had her freaked out, hyperventilating, and I didn't have the foggiest idea why. She clutched at her black cloak like a church-going woman who'd accidentally tuned into a hip-hop radio station and shuddered. “But this can't be. You... you're working with the Veiled Order, are you not?” Her throat quaked as she spoke, a mound of loose skin hanging below the almost nonexistent nub of her chin.

“That depends,” I replied, “on who's asking.”

Pacing around me but keeping out of arm's reach, she shook her head. “It bewilders me... why do you serve the Veiled Order when me and my sisters devote our lives to serving beings like you? Why not join us, demon? Help us to rid the world of the destructive Veiled Order?”

I chuckled, placing my hands on my hips and peering down at the circle below my feet. “That's a mighty fine offer,” I said. “Let me out of this little trap and I'll consider it.”

Pursing her lips, the witch's eyes narrowed and her flabby face took on a graver look. Though it may have only been a change in the light, her features looked more pointed now, animalistic. Her teeth, sharper than before, were bared in a grin. “It's all right. I will convince you to join us through other means.” Holding out one hand, she started into a guttural chant, the bulk of her face mercifully hidden beneath the hood.

I watched as her hand transformed into a long, glimmering blade that looked awfully familiar.

Shit. I'd seen this trick before, and I didn't like it.

My heart began to race. I tried to move my feet, tried to lash out at her, but found I lacked the reach.
 
As the creature glared up at me, revealing a visage of refined hideousness and animality, she reared back and prepared to let me have it, the blade poised to run me through.

Hadn't I been stabbed enough for one night?

 
Damn it,
I thought.
Don't you have something for me here? Can't you do anything?
I was asking the demon, but I couldn't be sure whether he was aware of my thoughts.

The witch loosed a chilling war-cry.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the blow to come, and then felt something come over me. I found myself removed from the situation, made a spectator as someone else sat down in the hot seat.

The demon.

It was taking over for me.

 
Turns out he
did
make house calls. All I had to do was ask.

I'd long gotten over the discomfort it caused when he took the reins. I didn't care about being displaced, about being forced to watch from the sidelines. As I reopened my eyes and saw the witch before me, her enchanted hand raised to deal a deathblow, I willingly threw the demon the keys. He'd know what to do in this situation, would handle things where clueless me would fumble.