Seduced by Shadows ms-1 Page 5

  Even as she swore to make the next available appointment, she realized she’d walked all the way home and climbed the stairs to her apartment without cane or pain.

  She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She tilted forward to press her brow against the wood.

  What was happening to her?

  She prowled through her apartment as if she’d never been there, but nothing seemed out of place, nothing suggested a reason for her . . . lapse. A quick check of the television told her she’d lost only a day. She sat on the couch and rubbed her hands over her thighs, frowning absently down the dark hallway toward the bathroom.

  That’s where it had started, the peculiar, erotically charged dream about the man—the demon Ferris Archer. Her mind stuttered like a fingerprint-smudged CD, skipping and repeating, and she found herself standing in the bathroom doorway.

  She flicked on the light. In front of the mirror, she reluctantly raised her gaze above the opalescent stone dangling from the fixture. Still just herself. No one else. She shook her head in an attempt to dispel the mist gathering in her mind. No one else in the sense that she wasn’t anyone besides who she’d always been; not that no one else was standing beside her. Who else would be here, after all?

  In an effort of will she banished the image of Ferris Archer that appeared in her head, if not in her mirror. Just because he was tall and ripped and carried himself as if he could stop a speeding SUV with a single scathing comment was no reason to buy into his delusional fantasies.

  As if reluctant to do the job alone, her fingers were slow on the buttons of her shirt and the fly of her jeans. Finally, shirt hanging open between her breasts, she peeled down the jeans. She stepped out of the pool of denim and raised her gaze to the mirror.

  Gone. Her breath caught. Almost gone anyway. Once red and puckered, all that remained of the tangle of scars over her thighs and hips were traceries almost as unremarkable as her unbleached cotton underwear.

  She turned, craning her neck to look over her shoulder. The contortion was effortless, and for the last six months, impossible. Under her wondering fingertips, only faint raised ridges remained of the scars on her lower back.

  “I do not believe this.” She couldn’t stop her smile. She twisted the other way, just because.

  What had Archer said? “Don’t bother trying to decide whether to believe or not. It’s true.”

  At the thought of him, her smile faded.

  And what if everything else he said was true?

  “It will be one of the dark.”

  The man twisted his fingers as he made his pronouncement. Ten white twisting worms. Unfortunately, too large a lunch for the crow.

  Corvus leaned back in his chair. “Are you certain?”

  “With the solvo spreading well, the dissonance should definitely have triggered the crossing of a specimen from the more powerful strain. The crossing was so unusually violent, the Veil is still in flux, which will make our task that much easier. All signs point toward a djinn crossing, and we do have an agreement—”

  “Are you certain?”

  The crow stabbed its beak out between the bars to grab a paperclip off the desk. It sidled away, working the shiny metal in its beak and cackling.

  “Not entirely, no.”

  Corvus nodded once. “Then we wait. And continue our preparations. The wound in the Veil will serve us, whether the demon will or not.”

  The Worm twitched, as if impatience consumed every cell of his body just as, Corvus supposed, it did all mortal creatures. “Only my work has gotten you this far. I deserve . . .” Again, that twitch, accompanied by a conspicuous pallor.

  Corvus let the outburst pass, as he let the thieving crow keep its little toy. “All our efforts shall be rewarded, eventually.” The Worm couldn’t begin to understand how long Corvus himself had waited for his chance.

  The Worm nodded until Corvus thought his head would wobble off. “The demon must be djinn. I simply can’t believe the teshuva could muster such force across the Veil. I’ve noticed the impulse toward repentance diminishes in ratio to the threat of punishment. Which explains the remorseful teshuva’s mediocrity in this realm.”

  “You simply can’t believe?” The Worm could do nothing simply, not even speak. “With the Veil isolating us from what lies beyond, our beliefs are all we have to sustain us.”

  Rather than endure the Worm’s squirmings at the reprimand, Corvus swiveled in his chair to look out over the city. The sun burned a pale gray hole in the darker gray sky. The light raised forlorn glimmers in the delicate sculptures arrayed on the windowsill. The churches born of Rome weren’t the only ones to capture peace and beauty in glass. He caressed the stone in his ring, calmed by the vista and the promise of what was—at long last—coming.

  “If Sera Littlejohn is possessed by one of ours, then she will fight for the Darkness. If not, she must die.”

  “She’s on the move.”

  Ecco’s voice crackled in Archer’s earbud, and he scowled up at the darkening sky where low clouds threatened snow. He remembered the restlessness that had driven him at his demon’s ascension, but couldn’t she have just done a little knitting instead?

  “Wrong century,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?” Even through the electronic connection, Ecco sounded as annoyed as Archer felt.

  “I said I’m on it.”

  “You’re not going to be able to sweet-talk her down this time, Archer,” Ecco said. “If she turns djinn, you need to take her out right then before she calls in the horde-tenebrae to lick your bones. Niall, you’re sure he’s the man for an action job?”

  “Fuck you,” Archer said conversationally.

  Niall was already talking over him. “Reserve this channel for the exchange of useful information, gentlemen.”

  “I ain’t no gentleman,” Ecco said. “You must mean fancy pants. Hard to believe he’s got an annihilation-class demon in there at all. Just let me know where the fightin’ words channel is, and maybe I’ll find it—”

  Archer ripped out the earpiece, ignoring Niall’s tinny squawk. He left the shelter of his car just as Sera stepped out of her apartment building.

  She’d dressed for the falling temps, including the scarf she’d wanted last time. She tucked her chin down into the heather wool a few shades darker than her coat, and with her blond hair contained under a matching hat, she was just another gray shadow moving through the gray city.

  Until she glanced up to see him. Her hazel eyes widened, and the blush that rose under her teeth when she bit her lower lip roused an answering pulse of blood through his veins. Carnal tension and something deeper twisted in him.

  “I didn’t call you.” She held up one gloved hand. “Not last time, not this time. Not the time when you were the demon.”

  “I wasn’t the demon.” A fine distinction at the moment.

  “Whatever.” She marched past him down the sidewalk. “I didn’t call. In fact, I burned the business card. You’re stalking me.”

  He fell into step beside her. “You didn’t burn the card. You’re not stupid. And, yes, I am stalking you.”

  She frowned at him. “You could at least pretend to feel bad about it.” She shook her head when he drew breath to answer. “Right. No lies. No tricks. No pretending either, I assume.”

  “I’m here for you, Sera,” he said simply. He didn’t have to tell her why.

  She turned to him, angling her face to make up for the difference in their height. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “No. It’s just the truth.”

  She walked on. “Strangely, I do feel better.”

  She wouldn’t, if she knew what he’d have to do if the demon possessing her wasn’t one of theirs.

  “Maybe just because I’m moving,” she continued. “I swear, the walls were crushing me.”

  “The demon comes from a place of infinity. They want to be on the move, on the hunt, stretching our senses.” The rhythm of his words matched th
eir steps, her stride matching his. He caught himself eyeing the length of her leg and scowled. “Don’t indulge it too freely. Tempting a demon to run amok is a bad idea. Repentant or not, there’s a reason they were damned.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Never mind the demon. I’m happy to be on the move again. Since the accident . . . Anyway, I feel almost like myself again.”

  For the moment. “I noticed you’d left the cane behind.”

  “The kids downstairs snatched it. They were riding it around like a witch’s broom.” She shot him a narrow glance. “Do you believe in witches too?”

  “Maybe they were pretending it was a hobby horse,” Archer said, still thinking of the cane.

  “They’re city kids. They’ve never even seen a horse.”

  He realized abruptly he was showing his age with the antiquated reference. “Just because they’ve never seen one doesn’t mean they can’t want one.”

  They walked in silence past houses as quiet as if the stones themselves were hunkering down for the night.

  “Speaking of not seeing,” she said suddenly, “my scars are all but gone.”

  Without a word, he rolled up his sleeve. Only a white thread of puckered flesh remained from his demonstration at the pier.

  She closed her eyes, opened them again, but shifted her focus to the black. “That tattoo.”

  “It’s my reven, an interrealm rift torn into my flesh to mark where the demon entered.” He touched the pulse point of his wrist. A flicker of violet chased along the black lines. For a heartbeat, the surrounding skin seemed to fade to translucence, revealing not muscle and bone but some glittering void. “It’s our only view into the demon realm.”

  “Torn?” She blinked. “That must’ve hurt.”

  “No.” Honest enough. By the time the mark appeared, his torment had been too deep to notice.

  “I saw a similar tattoo—reven—on the driver at the pier.”

  “The pattern identifies the class and potency of demon and its point of entry. In Ecco’s case, a strong chaos-class demon.” Archer smirked. “I’ll be sure to let him know you made him.”

  “You’ve been watching me. You said there was no conspiracy.”

  “I said it wasn’t a government conspiracy. We’re . . . private contractors. Very private. We keep watch over all demonic activity.”

  “You stay together?”

  “More or less.” Zane had mentioned an obsolete mated-talyan bond. Maybe in those days they’d taken turns taking out the demonic trash.

  “Like a support group? To find a cure?”

  “There is no cure.”

  “Funny, I don’t feel doomed.” She stared down at her feet. “I’d forgotten how nice a strong body is. My poor patients . . . I could just keep walking forever.”

  He caught her arm and forced her to a halt. Forced himself to ignore her supple heat under his hand. Nice body, yeah. “You can’t escape, Sera. Somewhere inside, you sense what’s coming.”

  She strained against him, testing her strength. “And what is that, exactly? End-stage demonic infection, I know. Maybe I’ll just take two aspirin and call my pastor in the morning.”

  Ah, he knew this moment well. He steeled himself against the pang. Just because she roused the memory of a certain idealistic, naïve young man was no reason to forget the hopeless outcome. “Too late. It’s ascending already, from your soul through your body, and demons can’t be destroyed. If you cast it out now, the demon will just seek a new host.”

  She lifted her chin. “That’s easy.”

  “No. It came to you through your weakness—in mind, in body. In your soul.”

  “Not exactly fair.”

  “I doubt fair comes up in the demon handbook code of ethical conduct. Besides, what does it take to resist temptation when you’re strong? Anybody can do that.”

  She pulled at him more forcefully. “I’m stronger now.”

  “Because of the demon. If you deny it, it will leave the way it came, through your wounds, taking what it has given you.” He tightened his grip, close to bruising as his demon roused to the defiance in her stance. If he gave it free rein, she’d know the folly of questioning him. “This strong body you like so much will be gone with the demon.”

  “I got by before.”

  “And when it goes, it will take a little more than you had. Call it recompense. Most likely, you’d never walk again.”

  She froze. “Maybe that’s the price I have to pay.”

  “Willing to sacrifice a chunk of your soul too? The demon burrowed into damage in your body and your soul. Places where it linked would be torn apart. Our theologically inclined believe your demon-mottled soul would be bound into the Veil between the realms to spend the rest of eternity waiting out the final battle in spiritual limbo.”

  She wasn’t pulling away from him now. “Final battle?”

  He ignored the question. “There’s no bargaining with this devil. You stay and fight for your hold on this realm, or you are crippled, physically and spiritually, for the rest of your life. A life that the most wretched of your former patients would deem a thousand times worse than their own deaths.”

  Sera stared at him, eyes so wide he caught a glimpse of the first drifting snowflakes reflected in her pupils. The demon had come to him in winter too, when old wounds ached most deeply. With all he’d lost, the prospect of spring had seemed obscene.

  He would do what needed to be done if Sera’s demon was djinn and not repentant teshuva. But he’d be damned—again—if he let Ecco, Niall, or anyone else force his hand.

  With his grip still on her, the violet-chased reven he’d exposed shimmered in the lower corner of his gaze, an unspoken reminder of his compulsion. Damned indeed. As he’d told Sera, the demon-mottled soul faced, at best, oblivion upon death.

  He just hadn’t told her that eventually oblivion no longer seemed so dire a choice.

  He didn’t know what expression was on his face—grimmer than plain old death, for sure. But she put her hand over his, covering the reven. The unexpected heat of skin on skin flared along the demon’s marking. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched that didn’t involve blood and ichor, that felt human warm and female soft. The contact shocked him out of his reverie, as did the gentling of her gaze. “Whatever happened to you, I’m sorry.”

  He loosed her abruptly, pulling away from her touch, away from the perilous sensations that ricocheted through him. “Thanks for the sympathy, but I’m not one of your hospice patients. I didn’t die.” The way she cocked her head made him wary of more questions. “Let’s go.”

  When he set his hand against her lower back, she twisted aside, a sinuous contraction of bone and muscle under his palm. “I’m not going anywhere. Not with you.”

  He took a breath, as if he could inhale patience. All he got was a lungful of cold air spiked with her faint perfume, a sweet fleeting scent even his enhanced senses couldn’t quite capture. “You need to be in a safe place.” Safe for her. Or for everyone else if her demon was djinn.

  She stepped out of reach. “So far, everything that has confused me most has come from your mouth.” Her narrowed gaze flicked over his lips, an almost tangible touch. His skin warmed in anticipation of . . .

  He shook himself as she continued. “So you won’t mind if I work this out on my own.”

  The unexpected cravings rattled him, and he spoke more sharply than he’d intended. “You’ve worked things out so well on your own. Tell me, after all the long nights on death-watch, have you figured out why your father’s mind has been taken? Or why your mother abandoned you?”

  A violet spark bloomed in her eyes, expanding in concentric circles through the hazel irises. He had a half second to acknowledge that his insensitive remarks wouldn’t make reasoning with her any easier. Without a betraying word, she leapt at him, fingers curled to gouge.

  Another note to self, he ruminated as he fended off her attack. He slid to the side so her momentum carried her past h
im. Sensitive to aspersions cast upon her past. Well, weren’t they all?

  “Hey,” he snapped as she whirled back. “Watch those nails.”

  “You watch,” she growled, slashing at his eyes again.

  He had to jerk back more quickly this time. She was already fiercer than he’d anticipated.

  The violet spark jagged across the browns and greens of her eyes. He tamped down a twinge of alarm. If the ascension was progressing this fast . . .

  “Sera.” He circled her, forcing her off balance. “Come back to me, Sera.”

  “I didn’t come for you when I was naked in my bedroom, so you can forget about it now.”

  This conversation wasn’t helping his concentration. He ducked her swinging fist, reluctant to engage when the violence was merely a symptom of the demon’s ascension. That, and she was pissed at him. He often wondered if angelic possession was gentler.

  He ducked another jab. “Sera,” he said warningly.

  “Never,” she hissed. “Never invoke my mother with your forked tongue.”

  “My tongue isn’t forked.That must’ve been the demon kissing you.” Exasperated, he caught her fist, holding it tight. “I shouldn’t have been so blunt, but your amateur forays into the physiology of the soul won’t help you now. You have to listen to me.”

  Not that tussling on the sidewalk was a good way to build trust. One hand still engulfing her fist, he spun her into a tight embrace tucked against his chest.

  “I know what you’re going through,” he murmured. Her hair, tufting out from under her hat, smelled warm with ire and that teasing perfume. He could almost, but not quite, picture the bloom, growing between the fields of his father’s farm, redolent under the Southern sun.

  Blindsided by wistfulness, he found himself adding, “I used to be like you, Sera. Trying to force it all to make sense, to matter. It doesn’t.”

  As he breathed in again, she slammed the back of her head into his nose and bolted out of his grasp.