THE BAZAAR (The Devany Miller Series) (13 page)

SIXTEEN

T
he room reeked of blood and pain. Zech hung in the middle of a room straight out of a medieval castle. A dungeon room, in other words. The modern twist was the drain and the metal grate covering it. For the blood, I realized, feeling sick. I stumbled back against the wall, turning my head away. 

"Well, well, well."

I snapped my attention to the man who'd spoken. A tall, rather fat man with a length of blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail. "
‘
Well, well, well
’
? Seriously, that’s the best you’ve got? Have you been training at the idiot's school of bad guy talk?" 

He's dangerous.

"Who the fuck isn't, anymore?" 

The blonde man's sinister smirk faded somewhat. Maybe he wasn't amused at my witty repartee. Maybe he thought I was a nut job and I made him nervous. "You should be nervous."

He'd recovered from my sudden appearance, straightening from his slouch and shaking out a leather whip with more appendages than an octopus. Cat o' nine tails. Holy damn. I'd only seen those in pirate movies. "Why, in the name of Slip, would I be nervous around you? Filth."

I smiled, my teeth bared. "Filth. I'm not the one beating a person to death."

His face twitched. "How did you get here?" His hand moved.

I threw up my hands. "Stop!" A thunderous burst of energy burned from my fingertips and knocked him backward five feet. Holy crap. I didn't know I could do that. 'Did you do that? Arsinua? Hello?'

He's bleeding to death.

'You won't help him by moaning over him now. We have to get him out of here. Neutria?'

The spider assassin awakened inside of me. Awaken wasn't the right word. She'd been observing, but silent.

'Neutria, you ready to back me up if I need it?'

Can I kill him?

I kept watch as he moaned himself awake, his attention fluttering back to me. 'If I say no, will you help?'

No.

Damn it. 'Fine. If I need you and if you can, then ... do it.' I hated saying it and decided that I would make sure I didn't need her help.

She heard my thoughts and her laughter made me shiver.

The man pushed himself up, terror reeking from his skin. It smelled like smelly feet and crotch sweat. "Who are you?"

"The ant at your picnic, fuck nut." I had a tendency to curse when I was feeling angry or keyed up. Okay, I had a tendency to curse most of the time, but managed to keep it contained except in extraordinary situations.

His lips moved.

He's preparing another spell.

Preparing? I lifted my hands and yelled “stop!” again. The blast knocked him back a step but he'd been ready for it this time. His hair blew back as if a gust of wind hit him, and then he loosed the energy he'd gathered.

I dropped and rolled, feeling my skin sizzle as it rushed by. The smell of burnt hair wafted to me, wrinkling my nose. I came up behind Zech, sick at the sight of the flayed flesh on his back. I concentrated on the heart. This time I knew how to open up the rush of energy. I didn't try any spells because I didn't know any. I stepped away from Zech and triggered the heart. A deadly spiral of magic exploded outward.

A white light flashed bright and hot in the dark room. I fell back on my ass, crying out when my hip cracked against the side of a wooden table on the way down. The rush of energy stopped.

There was a hole in the wall where the man had been. "Holy shit. Is he dead?" I struggled to my feet, my muscles shaking.

I don't know. I don't know what you did to him.

Neutria's annoyance flooded in my head. 'Sorry,' I said, grunting as I tried to lift Zech's manacled hands off the hook that held him suspended. 'Help,' I said to Neutria and she did, lending me some of her strength to get the sugar seller's body down.

Arsinua was keening inside me. Not much help, in other words. My arms, nightgown, legs were splattered with his blood. Cupping his cheek with my palm, I leaned down. "Zech? Zech, can you hear me?"

He moaned. Good enough for now. He wasn't dead, but he sure looked like he might end up there if I didn't do something. What? What could I do? What? Tytan. 

No. Not him. What would he know about healing, anyway? Demons destroyed, they didn't create, right? Still, what else could I do? As I sat there, my eyelids started to droop. What the hell, anyway?

You used your own life force to open up the heart.

"Which means what?" I yawned, my muscles limp and about as useful as wool in a rainstorm. I slid down to the floor beside Zech. "Shit."

If he comes back, if the others come ...

"Neutria. Can help. Me." I was going to fall asleep in the damned worst place ever and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

Used too much energy, foolish human. I can't change now.

"Use. The heart. Energy there." My two inner companions conferred with each other but I was too tired to make sense of what they were saying. My thoughts fuzzed together and then I was asleep.

When I woke, pallid leaves moved in a nonexistent breeze. The smell of death and decay filled my nostrils. I rolled over to see Zech lying next to me, a white, leech-like creature bending over him. Licking him.

You're back.

'Where the hell am I, Arsinua?'

Brought you home. Fleshcrawler queen offered help.

Neutria's home. Lovely. 'What's she doing to Zech?'

Arsinua's worry crawled over my brain like an annoying fly.
She says she's healing him. He's breathing better.

Her dubious tone made me wonder how a vampire/leech thing could heal by licking. Ew. I tried and failed to push myself up onto my elbows and the fleshcrawler looked up, its—her slitted eyes staring. "Hello again."

She hissed at me. I wasn't sure that was good or not and wished Nex were here. If I concentrated, could I bring him over? I closed my eyes to try but Arsinua snapped at me.

You almost killed yourself. You aren't ready for any more magic working.

"Yes Mom," I muttered, and earned another hiss from the fleshcrawler. We waited, watching as the vampire-leech woman laved Zech's wounds. It took forever. What was happening back home? Would the kids or Tom wander into the spare bedroom, find the salt circle, the food, and wonder what had happened to me? 'I have to get home. What time is it there, Arsinua?'

A moment.
She was still then she said,
An hour until dawn. You have time.

'What are we going to do with Zech?' What would Tom think if I brought a mortally wounded man home? Although, the longer the fleshcrawler worked on him, the better he looked. Wounds that had been oozing blood seared shut at her touch, leaving puckered scars in their places.  

At last she slid away from Zech, licking her lips. "He will live." The alien hiss in her voice drilled into me. "This will cancel my debt to you."

I nodded. "Thank you. For saving him."

Her smile was a nightmare. "Not him. You." She slithered closer, reaching for me. 

"No, no. I'm fine. Just tired." I couldn't move away from her, her influence and my weak muscles holding me in place. 

Her rubbery, clammy skin touched mine and I shivered. Her teeth glinted in the gloom. 

"No. Please, I don't want you to help me."

"You too, will die without my help." She lowered her mouth to my wrist. I tried yanking my hand away. Yeah. That didn't work. 

Shit. Shit. Shit! 'Arsinua! Help.'

A shimmer of power flared then faded. Teeth sunk into my flesh and I cried out. She sucked at me, taking the blood from me, draining me. "No." The word puffed out, light as air. I didn't even hear it myself.

She's killing you. I can't raise the power. Neutria!

Can't. No strength.

I sighed, the breath leaving me. I didn't have the energy to suck it back in. She would kill me and I could do nothing about it. Her teeth slipped free from my flesh. My body sunk down into the ground, my life leaking away. Nex, your wife screwed me.

Then there was cool flesh at my lips, and a glacial liquid slipping between them. It tasted of honey, of sugar, of a deeper, slippery taste I couldn't pinpoint. I slurped at her, and with each swallow life came back into my bones, into my flesh. I felt again like I had in my room, tapping that limitless energy. And maybe it was without limit, if I could figure out how to use it without using myself up.

I figured out too late what I was doing to get this energy. Now I remembered what Tytan had told me. "You don't want to get bit, it'll drive you mad."

I pushed her arm away but somehow I was still drinking. How?

She's glamouring you. Keeping you still. You have to stop. You take too much and ...

'And what?' 

And I don't know what.

Great. The queen took her arm away. Energy rushed through me as if I were mainlining caffeine or something even more potent. I jumped up, buzzing. "What did you do? Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I mean, thank you, but I don't want to be one of you. And you bit me. Oh shit."

She laughed—again, not a pretty sound. "I didn't inject you with the poison."

"Oh." Violence shivered inside me. I picked up a cream-colored branch about as thick as my wrist and broke it in half. Easily. "Cool."

"I gave you energy. Life force."

I broke the half branch, crumbling the bark in my hands. "This is amazing."

"A gift. Repayment for saving my husband."

I nodded. "I like your husband."

Some emotion flitted across her face. Looked like disbelief, but I wouldn't swear to it. "I love my husband."

I used to love mine. Shit. "So you gave me life force. You didn't turn me into a vampire or anything. Right?"

"Energy. Life force. Perhaps other things. I don't know." She wiped a drop of blood from her lip.

"I appreciate your help." I moved to Zech.

"He owes me."

Uh oh. "What?"

She smiled. "Blood. A sacrifice. In return for my help."

Zech will not like this.

'At least he'll be alive to not like it.' To the fleshcrawler queen I said, "Deal. Can I take him now?"

She nodded, looking every inch the queen she was. I slipped past her and gathered up Zech in my arms as if he weighed as much as a child. I was strong and it felt great. 

'You want to do the hook, Arsinua? Maybe I shouldn't yet, until I figure out how to do it without killing me.'

I cannot open hooks the way you do.

I bit my lip then pictured the hook. A tug at my middle and then the doorway shimmered. I stepped through with Zech, my mind focused on my spare bedroom. I didn't make it. Instead of a purple and tan bedspread and lavender walls, Tytan's living room roiled around me. Hell. I was in the Slip.

SEVENTEEN

I
laid Zech on the black couch, my brain swimming from the wavery air. Tytan hadn't set his house. Was he punishing me? Maybe I could set it. I focused inside, on the heart. I pictured the house as it had been once Tytan had normalized it for me. Humanized it.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

I stared at the plush silvery rug. "Trying not to vomit on your carpet." 

With another curse, Tytan muttered. The room—the immediate space around me—settled. Thank heavens. I stomped over to him. "Why the hell did you drag me here?"

"Why the hell were you in Midia? You were pulling enough energy to blow up a small country. Do you think magic like that goes unnoticed? Why aren't you dead?"

"Oh, excuse me. Sorry I can't accommodate you on that one, Ty. And I hate to be a pain in your ass, but I have to get back to my kids. I need a shower." I looked down at myself, Zech's blood turning a dark rusty maroon on my nightgown. "I haven't had any sleep. I have work tomorrow. Today. Whatever." It was hard keeping my eyes on the settled bits, not the wavering ones. "Where's Nex?" I wanted to ask about Lucy too, but decided I'd better keep my mouth shut. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe he didn't care.

"He can't save you this time. I'm going to kill you. I don't care how valuable you are." His face was black with rage. "You dared name my formless one. You dare defy me over every. Single. Thing."

I wanted to ask Arsinua if I had enough power to take Tytan on now, but of course she was hidden somewhere deep inside me. 'Neutria? Can we take him?'

He is still too powerful. Mate but not kill.

Oh hell no. "Listen, I didn't get a rule book. I didn't get the Do's and Don'ts list. Kay? And I don't give a shit if you're pissed about me naming the poor woman. She deserves a name."

He slammed me against a wall, making my head ring. I shoved back. He moved an inch. An inch. Whoopee do. But he looked shocked. "Where did you get such strength?"

My eyebrows rose. "Don't mock me. I'm not in the mood. And I'm tired of you shoving me into walls.” He stepped back, his face mocking as he held up his hands. I brushed at my nightgown. “What's the big deal with the name? Huh?"

"She was a vessel. An expensive vessel that I am required to make. Now she's unfit to be used and I'll have to start from scratch.” He gripped my chin. “Do you know how hard it is to make a formless one?" 

His shout hurt my ears and he was still too close for comfort. I was terrified and once again he was using his magic to make me horny and knowing that he could somehow generate those feelings in me didn't make them less real. I attempted to jerk my chin free but his fingers bit down. To one side I spied Nex. 

"Help me out here."

Nex floated into view, looking as disgusting as he had the first time we met and yet very, very good. What he said next was even better. "You kill her and you lose what you seek."

Tytan snarled at him. "I shouldn't seek what I want. I should let it be. Kill her, kill you. Return my existence to normal."

Nex didn't look concerned, but I wasn't sure how concern would even look on a bodiless vampire/leech monster, so I guess I couldn't say for sure. "My queen. I smell her on you."

I swallowed. On me. In me. "She says hi."

"I doubt that." He floated closer, his pallid face glowing. "I see."

Tytan howled. When he did waves of the worst-feeling energy washed over me. I cringed against the wall as he lashed out, batting Nex into the next room. He whipped around to me. "That power inside you. You will use it to help me make a new vessel. Tomorrow night. If you don't I will kill you. Slowly."

Death threats never got old. The terror welled each time it happened. When being threatened didn't get a rise out of me, I'd probably be dead. "Fine. I'll help you. But let's get something straight. No more getting pissy when I screw something up. If you don't bother telling me the rules, if you keep me ignorant and I fuck it up, then no more threats. Understand?"

He slid up to me, pressing his body against me, flooding me with desire. "I understand I had better keep you under control or you'll be the end of me."

His lips were so close. The lust thrumming through me made me wonder what they would taste like. I fought off those thoughts but they muddled my head. Was that why he did it? To keep me off my game? "Why not leave me alone then?"

"No chance. You're mine." 

I told myself to stop, told myself it was some sort of spell or lure that he used, but I still couldn't help lean in for that kiss ... and I fell into my bed, into the middle of the half-eaten cheesecake.

Zech fell with a thump to the floor.

"Fuckadoodle rex." I rolled to my back, chunks of cake stuck to my left elbow. Damn. 

Zech moaned again. I sat up, brushing off the cake and crossing the room to him. He was naked but for his torn pants and he was handsome in a clean-cut, college guy way. Unlike Tytan, he didn't ooze sex, but I still gave in to the impulse to brush his hair from his slack face. "What am I going to do with you?"

Sighing, I glanced at the clock. Six fifteen. The kids would be up soon. Tom would already be awake, showering. I cleaned off the bed, piling the food on the floor to take care of after I had the house to myself. My super strength was waning, darn it, but I was still able to heave Zech into the bed and get him covered up. I then smudged the salt circle into the carpet and after making sure Zech was asleep, stripped off my stained nightgown. I stuffed it in the back of the closet before pulling on a robe and streaking to the spare bathroom. I locked the door and showered—slopping half the water on the floor in my haste—then slipped into our bedroom to find clothes.

Tom was sitting on the edge of the bed, half dressed. His expression made him look like a kicked puppy. 

"Good morning." Red? Green? Skirt or pants?

"Is it?"

I made a face at my clothes in lieu of making one at him. "Rough night?"

"Come on, Dev. Give me a break."

Kay. Where do you want it? "I'm sorry if my anger makes you uncomfortable. I'm sorry that I can't forgive and forget. I'm sorry that this hurt me and you can't understand that."

"I know it hurt you, damn it. I know that. But the accident made me see what I did. Perfect clarity."

The bruises were discoloring his face, and wished I could feel something besides anger and betrayal when I looked at him. "I can't change what I feel to suit you."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to give me a chance to prove you can trust me again."

No way. I shook my head but he jumped up, wincing at the movement. He took my hands in his, pulled me to him. I didn't feel anything except impatience, a tug of pain. Nothing like the feel of Tytan's skin against mine.

Stop it, Devany. Stop it. Tytan is nothing. You shouldn't even be thinking of him. I concentrated on Tom, remembering how I'd felt about him in the early days, hell, even in the days before I'd found out he was a lying sack of shit. 

"I'm sorry. I can't." I took my hands back and, holding my outfit, left the room. I felt callous but I told myself it was nothing less than what he deserved. He deserved to suffer the consequences of his actions. The damnable part was I had to suffer too.

I locked myself in the guest room and checked on the unconscious man. Poked him. "Zech?" Nothing. I shucked my robe then shoved my arms in my sleeves, my legs in my underwear and pants, still shooting looks at Zech. He would be hard to explain if he woke while I was downstairs getting breakfast ready for the kids. 'Arsinua? You there?'

He's all right?

'As far as I can tell. Any way to keep him quiet until Tom and the kids leave?'

Yes. I think so.

She spoke a few words, which tugged at the heart. I slipped the lodestones into my pocket to give out after I made breakfast. I set out four plates, making enough for all of us, even Tom. Wouldn't he be surprised? I didn't expect him to stay but he did, his subdued thanks at his plateful making me feel guilty. A little.

I put my hand on his shoulder. He looked up with an expression that almost broke through that hard shell formed when I'd found out about his affair. "I can't promise anything."

For a moment it was like before, words passing between us—words we didn't need to say aloud to hear. He heard me. No promises. But not a definite no, either. If I shut him out, what would that be saying about the love I'd brought to our marriage? Wouldn't it make my love a little less real if I weren't at least willing to consider the possibility that my love for him could grow again? Repair the hurt? 

He thought I did it for him. But it was more selfish. I did it for me. For my humanity and for the belief in true love. Maybe it was stupid. Naïve. If I didn't at least entertain the chance though, I risked becoming hard and cynical. I didn't want that any more than I wanted him to hurt me again.

Such a dilemma. Still. Time would tell, right? He would show his true colors in the months to come. Except for a homicidal demon, there weren't any other prospects on the horizon for me. I could wait. How long? I didn't know. I honestly didn't know.

I slipped the spelled lodestone into his hand and told him to keep it with him. He nodded and put it in his pocket. The protective circle snapped in place around him. It was a giddy feeling knowing I'd done that, I'd created that. He didn't even question it and I was glad. When the kids came down, I gave them each their stone too. Again, the circles snapped in place, and again they didn't ask me any questions. Perhaps that was part of the spell. The stone slipped into their life, unnoticed, unremarked. 

With the circles in place, I could relax—a little. I was certain that the man who had tortured Zech would be gunning for my blood if he were still alive. I had to figure out a way to keep everyone safe, including myself.

After the kids and Tom left, I buried the five lodestones of protection in the yard. I hadn't done the tripwire stones yet, so I did them with Arsinua's help. Once done, I felt better. The dome of energy shimmered once in my sight then vanished from view but I could still feel its presence. Hard to believe that less than, what, a week had passed since my world had changed irrevocably? So little time and such monumental changes. If I hadn't been living it, I wouldn't have believed it to be possible.

Ordinary to extraordinary. And my, wasn't I being philosophical this morning? I finished cleaning up the spare bedroom, dumped the spoiled food, and vacuumed. Zech slept through it all. Cleaning done, I stared, with hands on my hips at the sleeping man. "What am I going to do with you?" I could leave him, but what if Tom came home for lunch and decided to move his crap into the spare bedroom? Urgh. I could take him to work and put him into shelter as an abuse victim, he qualified. But that would only work if I could wake him.

I sat on the side of the bed. 'Arsinua? Is he strong enough to wake up?'

I don't know. I'm not sure what the fleshcrawler did to him or how she healed him. I didn't know they could do such a thing. The only stories I've heard of them make them out to be destroyers, not creators.

'I'm going to try to wake him, then.' I sat on the bed next to him, bowing the mattress with my weight so that he rolled toward me. "Zech. Sleeping beauty. Wakey wakey." I tapped his arm, one of the few places the lash hadn't ripped to shreds. Those shreds, thanks to Nex's wife, were pale white scars now, the skin puffed but not red or angry looking. Her saliva was a miracle worker. What a fleshcrawler's poisoned bite might do to me, I didn't want to know.

Its effects will fade. Magic does not last in your universe.

'Yeah, but what about the heart?'

Oh. I hadn't thought of that.

Yeah. Magic might fade over here but the heart inside me was made of magic and connected, somehow to an infinite supply. Whatever Nex's wife had done to me would stay active. 

My fingers curled into the bedspread when the realization hit me. Holy fucking cow. I was the super weapon that bad guys in fantasy novels quested over and heroes fought to destroy in order to save the world. I was the ring in Tolkien's books. 

"Get a grip, Dev," I said to the quiet room. "Don't think so highly of yourself." Still, my stomach roiled as I shook Zech. "Hey, wake up." I prodded him again, but he didn't twitch.

Sighing, I asked Arsinua, 'Is there any place safe in Midia for him?'

It's a lot harder to hide a magic signature there. And Yarnell and his group have a lot of power. They could scent him out.

'They're that powerful?' I doubted. One of their own hadn't bested me—an ignoramus when it came to magic—so were they so powerful that they could find anyone they wanted at any time?

Our world works differently than yours.

"No shit." Her anger heated my skin. I muttered an apology, then said, "Tell me something I don't know. I know it works differently. That doesn't mean I have to believe that a group of evil people can do anything they want. There have to be limitations. You were scared of Neutria, right? This means there are things even magic workers like you should be afraid of."