The Demon King (40 page)

A wind picked up in the parking lot as
Lazaroth’s soul reached out to its mate for the life only it could
give.

Steven….

He shut his eyes tight as
his body moved. In his mind’s eye, he was moving in a dark room. He
stretched and grasped. Somewhere, there was a light. A candle’s
flame in the blackness.
Come to
me
, he thought. He felt his teeth gripping
tight, holding Dahlia fast.
Give in to
me
.

For it was not only her body he needed. It
was her mind. Her spirit. Her dark, purple fire. It was her life he
so desperately needed, beside him always, around him forever, his
and only his. Her life… her very soul.

Steven.

This time, the word was a name. And he
recognized it. In that room of black, in that yawning darkness, he
heard her beautiful voice speak two precious syllables. And he
realized the beginnings of something that threatened to change
everything.

The demon in him, the Curse in him,
rebelled. It wanted control. It needed control. It was power and
respect and revenge. It was the sharp edge of a sword, the business
end of a gun. It was the signature on an assassin’s contract. It
was him – it had him. It didn’t want to let go.

But….

“
Yes, Steven.”

That was what she had said.

Lazaroth plowed into his queen with the
demon mad thrusts of a man on the edge. But Dahlia did not fight
him. Instead, she wrapped her long legs around his waist and ran
her fingers through his thick black hair. She gave herself to him
as if she wanted him just as badly. As if she trusted him just as
much.

“
I give myself to
you
.” He recalled her words.

Color sliced through his darkness, a light
in the dark room. He spun in his mind, reaching, yearning. A candle
flame flickered, precious and delicate in the slightest breeze. He
held his breath and gazed at it. It was everything. It was his
life. Her life. It was them, together, forever. Connected.

“
Yes
, Steven.
I give myself to
you
.”
That
was the magic word she’d uttered. She had called
him Steven. Dahlia had called him
Steven
. Not Lazaroth. Not Detective.
But Steven.

Because that is who I am to
her
.

Laz’s body was climbing. He moved fast now,
his fingers pressing so hard into the hood of the car, they left
furrows in the paint and metal beneath.

That is who I am….

In the room in his mind, the candle flame
grew, becoming stronger. It shed light into the darkness of the
room and beckoned him closer. He reached out, tentative and
frightened. But hopeful. He knew the path now. He’d found his way
out of the dark forest.

That is who I must be. Steven Lazarus. For
her.

He stepped back onto the path.

For us.

The candle flame exploded into a bonfire,
completely enveloping him in its warmth. He felt the demon
connection between them at last, the flame that would never burn,
but always keep them warm, as long as they were together. Engulfed
in those comforting flames, he came to a sudden realization.

Dahlia hadn’t done this to
save any other man – but to save
him
. She’d brought him back from the
realm of monsters, pulled him out of the forest, and reawakened the
half of him that was his mother’s soul. The half of him that was
Steven.

The demon would always reside within him.
But now he would be both halves of the coin, as any man was. Good
and bad. Right and wrong.

And Dahlia had given
him
everything
to
make this happen. This knowledge, this truth, was a salve on the
burning fury that had nearly taken him, heart and soul.

In the parking lot, he withdrew his fangs
from her throat and threw back his head to roar into the night as
he came inside his queen. Again and again, he throbbed and pulsed
inside her, painfully and wonderfully and hellishly. Dahlia
screamed with him, clutching him tight and convulsing around him as
she reached that summit along with him and they went over the edge
together.

It took forever for him to ride it out. They
rode it out as one. And when they finally came down from that high,
it was to find the world quiet but for the crackling sounds of a
fire. Steven blinked and turned his head, holding himself up with
his arms.

They were surrounded by a ring of sparkling,
purple fire. The dark blaze formed a tall burning circle around the
car, shutting out the rest of the world. It wasn’t hot, only
warm.

Dahlia turned her head to take it in, then
looked back up at Steven. “It’s Stale Fire,” she said softly. Her
voice was hoarse from screaming. It sounded well used. It was
fucking sexy. He wanted to take her again.

“
What is Stale Fire?” he
asked, only half caring. The other half of him was entranced by the
beauty he was still firmly embedded in.

She smiled. “It’s
my
fire,” she
said.

Steven thought about that for a moment.
Then, knowing she would explain it all in good time, he simply
smiled. For the first time in Steven’s life, he was comfortable in
his skin. Especially where it was right now.

“
And
you
,” he told her before he lowered
himself over her and brushed her lips in a tender, teasing kiss.
“Are
my
fire.”

Chapter Fifty-Three

Astaroth gazed at his reflection in the
mirror. It had been a while since he’d cared about his appearance.
But he cared now.

He was going to see her at last. Every
second he’d spent torn from her side had been like living half a
life. He was separated and incomplete. The night was gray rather
than black, the stars blurry rather than bright, firelight
flickered dully, the moon was never quite full. But now… there was
hope. This period of torture had come to an end.

He felt a rush of something unfamiliar move
through him, pleasant but unpleasant. Nervousness? Anxiety? He
laughed at himself, the sound of course beautiful. He wondered what
she would say when she saw him. That reaction, that pivotal moment
was why he cared. It was why he peered into that gold gilded mirror
and studied his reflection. He wanted everything to be perfect.

It was fortunate for him that he was who and
what he was because it meant his appearance hadn’t changed. His
eyes were still bottomless black, ringed with the hellfire that
burned in his veins when he was angry. His skin was flawless, his
long wavy hair a shining pitch black but for the single stripe of
gray that had appeared when his son was born. As if to demark the
occasion, and his status as a father.

It had been thirty years.

Thirty long
years
, Astaroth thought as he closed his
dark eyes and felt the pain in his back and knew that in a few
short moments, the pain wouldn’t matter any longer. He could
endure
anything
if he was with her. If he could hear her laughter, listen as
she went on endlessly about the physical nature of the multiverse,
taste those ridiculous peanut butter and honey sandwiches she had
once made for him. He would and could forget any pain, all agony,
and take anything life threw at him as long as he was in her arms
once more.

Thirty years.

Thirty years ago, Astaroth had looked into
his baby boy’s eyes and known that the power to kill demon royalty
had been transferred to the infant. Astaroth no longer possessed
it. Lazaroth had that power now.

He’d known this was the case and he’d
realized what he had to do. He had enemies. He was a king; this was
natural, and new enemies cropped up all the time. Should anyone
from the royal bloodline come after him or his family, he would not
be able to protect them. Lenore was only human. Lazaroth was only a
child. There was no hope for it but to use what power he had to
protect Lenore and the baby – and then disappear.

Three decades.
That was how long it had taken for his son to
grow into the man he was now. The
king
he was now. The time had given
Astaroth what he needed to heal from the protection spells he’d
placed upon Lenore and the child. Lazaroth was powerful now. There
was no longer any reason for Astaroth to hide. His son could
protect his loved ones from the envious rage of his fellow
demons.
He
could
kill Apollyon.

“
Wouldn’t you rather kill
him yourself?” came an unseen voice.

Astaroth turned from the mirror he had been
looking into. The room was empty, but it had suddenly grown cold.
Very, very cold. Astaroth exhaled, watching his breath condense in
the air in front of his lips. The lights in the chandelier overhead
flickered.

They went out and he was cast into
darkness.

There was an abrasiveness to the air around
him that made the hairs on his neck stand on end. It felt like
brushing up against the sound of static, sharp edged and prickly.
Silence stretched, a quiet that bordered on unnatural.

Astaroth sent out a tendril of magic,
attempting to pierce the darkness enough to see the intruder. But
his magic seemed to fizzle around him, as if the air were so cold,
the power solidified and fell as useless ice crystals to the plush
carpet below.

Astaroth rolled back his shoulders and
considered his options. Someone or something had breached the
magical defenses he’d put into place and was now with him in the
living room of his two-story Connecticut home in the mortal realm.
The opposite end of the room was composed of floor-to-ceiling
windows that afforded him a millionaire’s view of the forest and
night beyond. There was no moon, but there was enough ambient light
from those windows that little by little, a gray illumination
spread into the room.

In that illumination, the shadowy outline of
a very tall and exceedingly thin figure was revealed. He must have
been wearing black, for all Astaroth could truly make out was the
white of his face. Not even the man’s facial features could be
discerned in the dim. But there was something so highly unsettling
about the figure’s sudden appearance, it was disturbing.

“
Tell me,” the figure said
in a voice that slithered and coiled and reached into every crevice
of the room, filling it with further darkness. “Wouldn’t you like
to be able to protect Lenore yourself?”

Astaroth’s ancient heart beat hard, a
pounding of volatile recognition at the mention of Lenore’s name.
His demon instincts reared their head, and magic flooded his arms
and hands in preparation for a fight.

Laughter greeted the reaction. The stranger
chuckled, emitting the sound that must have been the one to cause
Cthulhu’s insanity. It was the grating, deep and wrong noise that
formed madness in the first place, long ago in the primordial ooze
that would one day line the pockets of psychiatrists and therapists
around the world.

As the creature laughed, Astaroth could just
make out the thing outlined by the windows shaking its head. “I am
not your enemy,” it said. “You and I have much in common. We are
both very old.”

He waited, as if Astaroth would agree. But
of course, the demon said nothing.

“
We are both very
powerful,” he continued. “And we both want revenge.”

Now the former king of the demons raised his
head, just a little. The “R” word was one he had unfortunately
never been able to ignore. It was part of the Curse, perhaps, part
of what made him who and what he was. There was an ever-burning
need in the heart of a demon. It was almost an ache, prevalent and
incessant. The anger that fueled it was the foundation upon which
the Demon Realm was built.

Vengeance. To a demon, it
was simply a dish best
served
.

However, if the stranger didn’t get to his
point soon, Astaroth was going to enjoy a little right now. The
magic in his hands was reaching the boiling point. It wanted a
place to go, and something to destroy.

The stranger tilted its oblong white head.
Again, Astaroth attempted to make out his features, but failed. The
shadows were too deep, perhaps. He narrowed his gaze, and the fire
in his vision began to spread. He was losing patience.

Suddenly, lightning flashed outside the
windows, casting the room into stark black and white contrast and
sending the shadows scurrying. For a split moment Astaroth saw the
stranger’s face.

But he never had a chance to react to the
sight. The stranger blurred, moving so fast toward Astaroth, time
lapsed around his black, elongated figure. The impact as he struck
home was deadly.

Astaroth saw stars. He saw oceans of light
and endless chasms of darkness. He was floating, sustained in time
and space as if it were a jelly-like miasma. He sensed nothing but
a vague curiosity as to how he’d gotten there.

And then the stars and chasms of time and
space were gone, and Astaroth was once more standing in his living
room.

Thunder rolled overhead, low and long. The
chandelier flickered several times before it came back to life,
bathing the room in a soft, expensive glow. Slowly, Astaroth turned
to face the mirror he had been looking into only minutes
earlier.

Lightning crashed a second time, causing his
reflection to shift in darks and lights. A regally handsome man
gazed out from the mirror, lustrous pitch black hair with gray
stripe, strong chin, dark eyes filled with hypnotism and magic and
ringed with fire. The reflection’s lips curled in a smile that
revealed strong, sharp fangs. It was a beautiful smile. It was
confident. It was charming.