Wicked Demons (5 page)

“The kind that bites,” he snapped in her
face.

“You better not,” she said, not daring to
move.

He shifted so close his teeth would have
grazed her if she breathed too deeply. “Or what?”

Through a clenched jaw, she warned,
“Don’t.”

“You’re just a human—food for the lesser
fiends,” he chuckled. “You hold no power here.”

Grabbing her upper arm like it was a twig
caught in the force of a hurricane, they fell, Andi riding him to
the ground, grappling. Like hell Andi would let someone treat her
so lowly! She’d die before he got the upper hand, and in that
moment, she felt her anger rise with the weight and sting of hot
magma. It coursed through her veins, thick and slow, boiling ever
hotter as it closed in around her grip on the stranger’s neck.

She had been so preoccupied with her
channeled hatred that his screams were secondary to her receptors.
He wrestled to pull her scorching grip loose, but actually faltered
time and again for a number of crucial seconds before wrapping his
hands around hers. They felt tiny in his grip, though powerful.
Challenging.

A hidden desire stirred as he internalized
her heat, drinking it in. Initially, she had caught him off guard,
thinking she was human. But what he had discovered here, this
smoldering form laying atop him, was an impressive force. A force
that may never be tamed. Or perhaps only by him.

“What are you doing?” she asked, wide-eyed,
feeling the heat build in their grip. “What is this?”

Ignoring her questions, he retracted his
sharp, feral teeth and kissed her with every bit of life coursing
through him. He released her hands. Finding his way past the ragged
shirt’s edge, he pressed his palms against her smooth stomach,
cycling her energy back into her silky, toned body.

Tingling everywhere, Andi shivered and
goosebumps rose across her forearms, even though she was the
hottest she had ever been. His hands felt like pure fire licking at
her flesh, and yet it felt too good to make him stop.

She moaned into his mouth, causing a frenzy
to stir within him. He found her tongue with his and wrestled it as
he rolled her under his body.

They passed the heat of her fire back and
forth for what felt like ten lifetimes until footsteps rushed
noisily in their direction.

He let go and jumped to his feet. Andi stood,
but noticed that two handprints glowed on her stomach. The demon’s
handprints!

“What’s happening to me?” she asked, fighting
the rising panic.

The cell door swung open before she was given
an answer and the beast who had been threatening her one minute and
attacking her with lust the next pounced on the unsuspecting
urchin.

The hunchbacked guard surrendered
immediately, begging for his life as he cowered at the demon’s
feet.

“Do not hurt me,” he gurgled in a sub-human
voice. “Go. I will not stop you, I swear it.”

Rushing from the confines of the cell, he
turned and barked, “Come!”

Still foggy from his advances, she looked
down to notice the handprints on her skin fading. Meeting his gaze,
she shook her head. “How can I trust you? I don’t even know your
name… And I doubt you care to know mine.”

Finding her refusal to escape baffling, he
stepped back into the dank cell unfit for a creature of any
domain.

“Toryn. I am Toryn. And you are Andi.”

“How did you know—“

“Would you like an answer or an escape
route?”

“I…” Andi shook her head and observed the
fragile, dirty being kissing the dirt at Toryn’s feet. “Get me the
hell out of here.” She hopped around the groveling form and they
closed the door on him, leaving him to answer to their fate.

Sleuthing through narrow, dark passages, she
asked, “Do you know where we’re even going?”

Not stopping, he barreled forward,
explaining, “I sense activity this way. I feel them in my
head—“

“You hear them the way you can hear me in my
mind?”

“Exactly. And they have bright auras, the way
ones do when they are exposed to the natural light of the sun.”

“They’re topside?” Andi felt a flutter in her
stomach at the thought of being outside, in an open space, basking
in the heat of the day. Then a thought occurred and she gasped.
“The tow truck will be searching for me. I have to get back to my
car.”

Toryn slowed his pace and turned to look into
her eyes. “You wish to resume your mundane life?”

“Excuse you? My life is pretty damn nice. So
yes.”

“Why do you wish to live as a human?”

“What sort of question is that? I am human.
I’m…” The memory of mounting heat rising from her depths plagued
her. Nothing of the sort had ever happened before. In the recesses
of her mind, she blamed the demon, not wishing to think of the
incident further.

Toryn shook his head.
I am not the fire
demon
.

“And I am?” she practically yelled. “Get out
of my head!” Leaning against the tunnel wall, she dropped her face
into her palms.

A fresh set of much heavier footsteps stalked
them. Andi held her breath as an incredibly disfigured silhouette
manifested out of the darkness into a disturbing heap of muscles
and scales.

“What is that?” she whispered in fear.

“A hell hound.”

“Those exist?”

Before she could clear the images of rabid
dogs from her mind, the large creature charged them. Rather than
retreat, Toryn closed in on the massive form. The sickening
noise—that familiar noise—filled the tunnel and Toryn’s teeth
resembled tiny killing blades as they ripped into the neck of the
beast. But his attempt proved unmoving.

Flinging Toryn down the long tunnel, the
oafish sack of flesh naturally turned its attention to Andi. She
was no match in a footrace with her injured knee.

Under her breath, she said, “I can’t die from
an oversized toad.”

The thing roared through the isolated hall
and Andi swallowed audibly. It stormed her without warning. With
nowhere to go, it easily snared her between its enormous, slimy
mitts that should have been hands on a creature that walked bipedal
like a man.

Sliding its grip tightly around her neck,
Andi felt her feet lift off the ground.

As static rounded her sight from her
peripheral inward, that odd sense of anger returned. It simmered in
a hidden, quiet part of her. But soon it rushed to ignite her skin,
to burn or conquer that which challenged her. And she let it go
this time, secretly hoping it would be enough when she reached out,
laying both glowing red hands on the creature’s unattractive,
flaking baboon-like face.

It shrieked and squealed like a puppy,
dropping Andi to the ground immediately as it retreated back into
the darkness.

In disbelief, Andi said, “I burned it.”

“Yes,” Toryn agreed, gaining his footing and
finally standing.

“I burned a man’s—a thing’s—face off.”

He shook his head. “You merely scalded it. A
hell hound’s skin is extremely resilient.”

“Of course it is,” she mocked.

Looking worn, Toryn turned with a cautious
gait. “We should keep moving,” he advised.

“Then go. I just need to keep breathing so I
don’t scream or lose my mind.” Trying not to hyperventilate, Andi
started babbling. “How can I be a demon? I’m a vegan, and I never
took that telemarketing job in college, even though I could have
used the extra money. And I won first place when I was six for
making the best Baby Jesus out of cotton balls in Bible school.”
Staring straight ahead into nothingness, she mumbled, “It’s still
sitting on my parents’ mantle with a ‘First Place’ ribbon. How does
any of that translate into ‘demon’?”

“We are born as we are. Our actions change
nothing.”

“That’s bullshit,” she wheezed as her throat
grew tighter.

“What’s happening?”

“Asthma. Is that not a revered demon
quality?”

“Stop and come with me.”

“Stop…flipping out, or stop…breathing like
this?”

“Both.”

He closed the distance between them and
kissed her, laying his open palm gently against her chest at the
base of her neck. After a long moment, he withdrew. Andi took a
deep breath, appreciating the ability to do so.

“I can breathe.”

“Mmm,” Toryn acknowledged.

With the barest smile gracing her lips, she
mused, “That didn’t seem like the actions of a big, bad demon.
Maybe you’re really—”

“The next time you panic, I will leave you to
die.”

“Aaand there you are,” she quipped.

Turning to face the direction in which the
first hell hound came from, he warned, “More are coming. We must
leave.”

Andi immediately lost her smile and followed
Toryn swiftly through the ever-winding tunnels, not understanding
in the least how he knew where they were going just by listening to
voices. Every step looked the same as the last, and every tunnel
smelled just as bad.

As they remained as quiet as possible, she
tried not to think about the possibility of being a demon. She
mentally filed through her day planner for the next week, arranged
a few schedule changes, and listed the pros and cons of her
lifestyle. Of course, that last activity led her right back to the
demon question, which led to a whole slew of other questions.

If I’m a demon, can I opt out of being the
office’s Christmas party coordinator this year?

Finally, they emerged from a portal in the
middle of the woods and only two scrawny guards stood in their
path.

“Halt!” the smallest one yelled.

Andi balked, “My grandmother’s taller than
you. Get out of our way.”

But these guards, no taller than four feet,
must have been quite different from the pushover they left in their
cell. These little men possessed swords and the power of ten men as
they assessed Andi’s rude comment.

The elfin-figured guard to the right laughed
and addressed the spherical guard to the left. “She wants us to
move?
Us
?” Losing all semblance of humor, he turned to Andi
and bore his teeth. “My grandmother eats bigger things than you.
But I’m not as picky,” he hissed, springing at her.

Toryn whispered,
Cannibals
, in her
mind before snatching the portly guard by his neck and squeezing
until something crunched and popped. Andi was knocked to the ground
by the other guard and rolled past in a headlock as the stocky
figure began to slump, gasping the last air his lungs would ever
feel.

“Get off!” She pushed at the thin creature
with little effect. It snapped its teeth in her face. “I’m not
dessert, you little bastard. Let go of me!”

Without thinking this time, the heat
spontaneously erupted from her core, causing the cannibal to run
for the safety of the woods as it yelled, “Beware! Fire demon!”

“Well that settles it,” she sighed, “I’m
really a demon.” Standing, she asked, “Does that mean the rest of
my family are demons, too?”

“Only a small percentage of the female
populace of a blood lineage can create fire. Males may develop
other powers, but it is rare.”

“Damn, that explains it. My nieces act like
little demons half the time.” She noticed the wan color of Toryn’s
face. “What’s wrong?”

He wavered on his feet and she rushed to his
side, using her shoulder propped under his arm to stabilize
him.

“Those cannibals were goblins. Their bite is
like snake venom to demons.” He pulled at his dark cloak, exposing
a view of his hard chest that made Andi’s breath catch. A mound of
vicious red tissue blemished his otherwise smooth flesh. “I was
bitten during a fight two nights ago.” Allowing the material to
fall back into place, he turned to show Andi the hanging meat on
the back of his upper arm. “And another just now.”

“What?” She tried not to start
hyperventilating again. “What does that mean?”

“We need to leave before the little one
brings more of his kind. It will not be so easy to escape the
cooking pot a second time. Not…” His eyes closed for a moment.

She shook him. “How do we get out of here,
Toryn?”

“To the west,” he pointed, barely audible.
“There will be a circular home of clay, though it is half a day’s
journey from here.”

As they began walking, Andi was doing her
best to act as a crutch for the weakened man at her side.

“How do we know that little one’s grandma
isn’t waiting for us in that clay home with silverware and
garnish?”

“It is cloaked by a spell.”

“Of course,” she said, “Why did I even
ask?”

They walked for miles, Andi aiding Toryn. It
gave her a lot of time to think, and a lot of questions formed
during their silence. When there became too many, it was time for
some explanations.

“Who was responsible for capturing us?” she
asked, prying from her deep, sinful thoughts of being so close to
him.

Toryn’s voice was worn, though a level of
resilience never wavered. “Demon hunters. They followed Michael. In
turn, he led them to me.”

“What happened to Michael?” A moment of
awkwardness filled her like a balloon. Here she was so close to
Toryn, pressing against his side as if they were conjoined and she
dared speak Michael’s name. But she owed him nothing. “He was in
the cage—“

“Chancer.”

“Yes, the chancer.” She shivered. “Don’t
think that won’t be the root of many phobias to come. He was in
there with me and didn’t fall when I did. Why?”

Without a smile or amused reaction, he simply
retorted, “The inexperienced or weak always fall when the bottom
drops. Always. Hence the origin of the name.”

How many times has Michael been in there?

Not enough to learn
, Toryn
returned.

Andi would never fully accept that he could
listen and respond in such a way. It was unsettling at best,
dangerous at worst. What if he overheard her wicked thoughts
involving key body parts and shameful positions? She was
successfully basking in nefarious thoughts, so much so that she
wasn’t watching quite where they were walking.