The Devil You Know (43 page)

My toes hung over the low wall’s edge. One step forward and down I would go, plummeting into the far distant jungle—assuming I missed the jagged rocks randomly protruding between myself and the trees below. One step back and I would be safe on Jacq’s stone balcony. Safe and cozy…and back in bed with my sleeping love, like two bugs in one very sensual rug. It was a very tempting image.

One step.

Surely I could take one step, especially after a night full of first steps.
It had been my first time to make love.
I moved back a half inch.
My first to travel off-world.
A quarter inch more and the balls of my feet rested firmly on the stone.
My first to have wings.
A rock loosened under my wiggling feet and fell, tinkling distantly as it skittered into a ravine.
My first to find out I was at least partially part of an ancient dark house of demons intent on destroying me, my family…indeed my entire world.
I edged forward again, shifting further into the strengthening wind.

Okay, so some of those firsts weren’t that great.

Once I had fully realized my physical transformation I had jumped up and run naked around Jacq’s room, big black wings flapping crazily behind me, knocking things off her dresser and nearly setting my feathers on fire when my wings toppled the still lit candles. Finally, I had calmed down. (So maybe Jacq had tackled me and held me prisoner until I stopped foaming at the mouth. Same difference.) Once semi-possessed, I had approached the problem rationally. It was simple really.

The wings
had
to go.

While Jacq quietly watched, offering reassurance and assistance where she could, I’d plopped down on the stone floor’s fur rug and proceeded to spend the next few hours meditating, magicking, begging and bargaining with my demon-half, doing everything I could short of using a blowtorch to remove the giant, feathery…evil things that had sprouted from my back.

Horns.
Why couldn’t I have grown something cliché like horns? Then at least I could have worn a hat. I could have taken all the camouflage in Tennessee, ripped it up, sewn it into a lovely green blotchy bag the size of the Empire State Building, and dumped it over my head…and still there would have been no hiding these big black suckers.

After a time, I grew exhausted and agreed to again lie down with Jacq. I must admit, the hours of holding my love and being held in return were a nice, if uneven, exchange for the loop I’d been knocked for.

I was going to conveniently forget that my wings liked wrapping around Jacq as much as I did. Or that I hadn’t felt like making love again. Or that I’d made Jacq throw a sheet over the mirror and forced her to lie facing away from me so I couldn’t look into her eyes. The one thing I couldn’t forget was the pair of large wings jutting out of my back. Jacq had promised they could be retracted, but I had yet to manage it. And considering how hard it was to use the bathroom with big-ass wings knocking into everything, figuring out how was at the top of my list.

And for more than practical reasons.

Ramus had said I could be a Mistress of the Moon. I hadn’t understood what he meant until now. And the prediction—the realization unfolding even as my wings unfolded from my back—was a very frightening thing.

This world’s orange-pink sun rose, and I watched the landscape become a mixture of shadow and light. That jungle was a bit like me: wild and tangled. I wondered if somewhere in its depths, a darkness also lurked. Within my own soul, my demon-half paced, nervous as she wondered what I was about. Occasionally, she tested us, trying to wrest control from me. She was unsuccessful, but we were both growing stronger, while my will to fight her was growing weaker.

And beyond her, beyond the darkest part of my soul I had ever plumbed, something else moved. Something far blacker than anything either part of me had ever dealt with.
That
, I was almost certain, was the part of us that belonged to the moon.

It was that part which had me standing on the edge of a cliff at sunrise, contemplating jumping…assuming I had the courage to do what needed to be done.

“Cate, I’m not sure what you’re about, but I wish you would finish it inside,” Jacq said softly from the balcony door.

Turning my head slightly, I looked at her and caught my breath. Leaning against the doorway, she wore only a dark gray satin robe. Though her arms were crossed over her chest, unintentionally protecting her modesty, a long,
long
stretch of bare leg showed through the robe’s opening, tempting me with the knowledge that she wore nothing beneath. I flashed to the night before and having those long legs wrapped around me as I flipped her body. In my loose black drawstring pants, I felt suddenly overdressed.

But I would not be so easily distracted. This was as much for her as for me.

“Inside?” I asked, cocking my hand on my hip, turning further to face her, the wind gusting now as the sun rose fully. “Why, my love? Do you have an atrium large enough for a goose such as I? Assuming I could walk to it without these things,” I hiked my thumb over my shoulder, “hitting something every ten seconds.”

“Cher.” Jacq stepped off the wall, hand outstretched. “I told you, they will go back.”

“Not without giving the part of me that let them free reason to put them back again.”

Within me, my demon-half perked up, smirking at my words. Behind her, that dark force stirred, fluttering her wings. My own moved in sync, making it quite clear which of us held those reins. In my head, she smiled wide, white teeth flashing in the darkness, and whispered,
Not for a bucketful of ice in Hell.

I inched closer to the wall’s edge, alarming Jacq. “What do you think you’re doing?” she cried. My demon-half echoed her. Jacq took a step closer, and my demon-half gripped her cage’s bars. Behind me, my wings flapped strongly, my inner beast trying to push me back, away from the edge.

I turned, looking back at the jungle. “I’m taking control.” And with that, I shot my demon-half the mental bird and leapt.

“Cate!” Jacq lunged forward, grabbing for me as I did a beautiful swan dive, wings outstretched like Icarus taking flight from Crete. She missed, her hot fingers just brushing the soles of my feet, which would have been well and good had my wings worked.

Unfortunately, that was the moment when the wonderful, lovely, oh so strong wind decided to die. For a moment, I floundered in the air, my wings flapping in opposite directions, my arms and legs pinwheeling comically as I fought my demon-half for control. Then I fell like a stone.

So jumping off a mountain with nothing between me and the ground but a pair of untested demon wings wasn’t a very bright idea. Did I mention I don’t think well in the early morning? Well, I don’t. In fact, there wasn’t much I did exceptionally well before seven a.m., except perhaps fall.
That,
it seems, I did beautifully.

* * *

In the movies you see the hero catch the lady in this graceful, dress gently floating up, soft as a kitten manner. The hero never grimaces at the jarring thud, never comments on the lady’s bruising weight or the painful speed at which she fell. The hero never drops the lady on her ass only to glare down at her, muttering French curses under her breath.

Apparently Jacq—having flashed into the air to catch me before flashing us to the large pool room at the bottom of her mountain—had never seen any of those movies.

Rubbing my butt, I stiffly pulled myself up from the hard lava stone and returned her glare with a batting of the eyes. The second before she had caught me, as she had hung in the air with her robe flying behind her like a great cape, my own personal half-nude superhero had been damn sexy—and definitely worth the bruising my ego and ass had taken. The fact that my back was again smooth and wingless was also a plus. Somewhere mid-plummet, my demon-half and I had struck a temporary truce, at least in regard to large things that stuck out of my body at odd angles. She might control my wings, but as long as I controlled my legs and their wonderful ability to climb to great heights and leap off, she would
happily
share.

Deep within my soul, she snorted at my choice of adjectives.

“Which are you angrier at…” I asked, trying not to grin. “That I jumped off a mountain or that I did it badly?”

Jacq’s cheek twitched, but her voice was low and serious. “Cher, you will be the death of me.”

A shiver ran down my spine. I continued to smile but it was an effort. Her words had struck a dark chord in my soul, one that would not be laughed away. Nevertheless, I tried. Her skin softly glowed silver and I could already feel that steady pulse of power burning in her blood. She needed to release some magic and I knew just where to start. I wanted to spin around her world…and into her bed.

“Come, show me your paradise, Detective. We have hours yet before we have to return to New Orleans.” I held out my hand, gesturing to the clear warded wall that let me see the jungle growing mere feet away.

Instead of taking my hand, Jacq took a step closer, lowering her head as if she were sharing a secret. That pulse between us began to beat more insistently. My heart sped, matching its rhythm.

“Hours? I think not,” Jacq said huskily, her whiskey-smooth voice rippling like velvet across my skin. I inhaled, taking in her musky sage and sandalwood scent. Her nostrils flared, doing the same, scenting my growing desire.

“You, Cate, are all mine for the next few days.” She took another step closer, crowding me. Once more, I shivered, this time in pleasure at the look in her eyes. She stared at my lips, her own curving into a sensual, come-hither smile. “Mynx and JJ have already made the arrangements. So…” She looked up, catching my gaze, letting the word linger in the air, a world of possibility burning in her silver eyes.

I gulped.

“Um…” Looking down, I tore my eyes from hers so I could think. But the sight of her open robe didn’t help. The ivory skin it revealed was blushed with silver magic. My tongue darted out to lick suddenly dry lips. “I promised Mamie Deveroux we would come for tea. I missed our visit two weeks ago, and she called to remind me yesterday.” I touched Jacq’s collarbone, watching trails of white magic follow my fingers as they moved lower. Before I could lose myself, I dropped my hand and took a step back, needing the distance to think clearly.
She was not going to like this.
I looked up, meeting her shining gaze. “Besides, it’ll give you a chance to meet the in-laws.”

Looking disappointed, Jacq tilted her head, her loose hair swinging to the side. “Your ex-in-laws? Why would I want to meet your ex-husband’s mother?”

The magical pulses faltered, stopping then resuming at a slightly slower rate.

“That’s just it.” I steeled myself. “Luke’s not my ex.” I knew my expression had to be as pained as I felt. “A letter addressed to Luke came to Mamie’s house. That was her real reason for calling. It seems there was a glitch with the annulment. Luke and I are still married.”

I blinked, watching her face intently. I expected surprise, a word, a shout…an accusation that I had let us make love knowing I was “technically” still married.

Our bond was wide open, but I felt nothing, not a scrap of emotion from Jacq. Her face was blank. Frozen. The air in the room stilled, and the ground seemed to shift, as if my love’s world had heard my news…and did not approve. That pulse of magic, beating in time with her heart, stopped. My stomach dropped in fear. The crystals embedded in the cave walls began to pulse rapidly, their glow becoming almost painful to the eye. Jacq’s eyes, open wide, turned pure white, my only warning.

I reached to touch her, and with the first brush of my fingertips against her skin, a massive lightning bolt of silver-white magic, like a giant burst of static electricity, blew me into the air. Heat rushed over me, searing my skin, melting my bones. I hit the cave’s stone ceiling with a dull
boom
. Pain layered upon pain until I was amazed I was still conscious. Water sizzled as I fell into the large blue-green pool near the waterfall. Icy cold shot like daggers into my burns and it was too much. I screamed, gurgling as water rushed into my mouth.

Just before the heavy churning water pushed me down, I saw Jacq’s face. It was still blank, our emotional and mental bond still empty of thought or feeling. I was so shocked I didn’t fight my way up, instead letting the waterfall push me deeper still.

Perhaps it showed a lack of foresight, but though I had already
hit
the roof over this news and had thought Jacq would also, I had never thought it would be quite so literal for either of us.

Looks like the honeymoon was over.

The first thing I noticed was that the water was warm. The second was that I wasn’t drowning. So my priorities were a bit backward. What can I say? I was having a bad day.

I opened my eyes, panicking, ready to swim to the surface, but the ghostly apparition hovering inches from my nose startled me. I opened my mouth, choking as it filled with surprisingly sweet water. Water rushed down my throat, but instead of the expected burn of oxygen-deprived lungs, I felt only the pulsing rush of healing magic, taking away my pain, mending my bones and soothing my scorched skin. I hadn’t suddenly grown gills, and the water hadn’t held this sort of power the night before, so I assumed this miracle belonged to the hazy white figure floating before me like a half-translucent cloud.

Mama?
I wasn’t sure why the figure reminded me of my mother, but there was something about her that struck a memory I couldn’t quite grasp. The figure separated, letting me see the others floating around us, nearly invisible in the watery sunlight.

Like a chorus, low and high female and male voices spoke.
We apologize for the harm we caused you. It was not our intention.

I spun in the water, wincing at the movement. More magic moved into me, pulsing in my blood as it took my pain away. At least thirteen, they surrounded me.

Not your intention,
I thought in response
. You did this? Where’s Jacq?
Not waiting for a response, I swam toward the surface.