Come Hell or High Water Page 9

  Within seconds I found myself dressed in black jeans, a rust-colored shirt and short-sleeved jacket, and black ankle boots. To my surprise, I was also wearing my holster with my Glock securely tucked inside and hidden under the jacket.

  “Your knives are in your boots,” he said.

  He knew I used to wear the Glock, with its Wiccan-blessed silver bullets, before the Invisi-shield had gone active – I’d told him that. He knew I was pretty good with my throwing knives, too, though how he’d known I kept them tucked into my boots, I didn’t know. Maybe he guessed. Or maybe he snooped while I was in my vampire coma. From the guilty expression sliding across his face, I figured it was snooping.

  “It’s not really your stuff,” he said. “I just recreated it.”

  Connor reached for my hand.

  The air went still, the world black and zingy, and then, pop, we were back in the first cavern. Scrymgeour, who’d been asleep, jumped to his tiny feet and scurried toward Connor. He leaned down and scooped up his puppy, allowing the hellhound to lick his face.

  My gaze landed on the demon bodies that still hadn’t dissipated. I studied them as several mental pieces clicked into a very ugly puzzle. The smell. The location. The hellhound. The demons. One thing I knew about demons was that they had to return to the Pit to heal from grievous injuries. Usually they poofed Downstairs quick-like.

  Yeah. No denying it now.

  “Connor?” I asked softly. Anger fluttered somewhere beyond the relief that I was alive (sorta) and clean. “Are we in hell?”

  Chapter 13

  Jennifer had told me, in a fashion. She’d said it wasn’t too bad on the first level. I hadn’t considered what she meant because the conversation had been so odd. Nope. I just said to send me to where Connor was without asking any more questions.

  Scrymgeour jumped out of his master’s arms and sat next to Connor, his little bulgy brown eyes on me. His tongue lolled out of his mouth. Aw. He was so cute for a mutt that munched on demons.

  “You’re angry, aren’t you, lass?”

  “You think?” I waved my hands around. “Does Jennifer live in hell?”

  “Sorta.”

  “What?”

  Connor held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, his expression one of trepidation. He looked at me as though he were trying to figure out how to explain why he’d taken me to hell in a way that might not upset me.

  Right.

  “We’re on the uppermost level,” he said, as though that were a perk.

  “I don’t want to be on any level.”

  “It was the safest place to go.”

  “You have a really stupid definition of ‘safe.’ Hell is the opposite of safe.” I gestured toward the demon corpses as evidence. Gah! I wanted to punch him in the head. I clenched my fists. “Get us out of here now!”

  “Okay, lass.” He wisely refrained from telling me to calm down.

  “I want to talk to my son. I want to hug him and rub my face in his hair and tickle his belly.” My voice bordered on the edge of whiny. “And I want some cookies.” I looked at him in horror. “I can’t eat. Oh, my God. I can’t eat human food unless I’m in Broken Heart.”

  “Are you hungry, then?” he asked. He tapped the side of his neck. “You can have another pint, if you like.”

  “No! I want to eat my emotions. I need comfort food, damn it.”

  His brows went up and he opened his mouth.

  I raised my hand in a “stop” gesture. “Don’t even.”

  Connor picked up Scrymgeour and stepped toward me, his gaze wary.

  “You’re taking him with us?”

  “I promised him I wouldna leave him again.”

  “You, making a promise?” I asked.

  “I never make a promise I canna keep.”

  Somehow, I didn’t doubt that. And I should have, because he’d already proven he was a highly skilled liar.

  “C’mon, lass.”

  I grasped the hand Connor held out, and then the world fell away.

  ———

  We appeared, side by side, on a very comfortable black sofa. The dimly lit room smelled sickly sweet, like a rose-filled funeral parlor. Black furniture, and red accent pieces – like that vase with dead black roses in it – filled the place. Scrymgeour leapt out of Connor’s lap and started sniffing around. Then he meandered out of the room, through an open door that led to a staircase.

  “Kitchen,” said Connor.

  “Really?”

  “It’s like a real house. Jenny created it on the first level – sorta in the ether. It’s difficult to get to if you don’t know how to get here.” He tapped his temple. “She’s very powerful. Not only can she zap from hell anytime she wants; she can be a portal for other demons.”

  “Demons like Lilith?”

  “It’s why I protect her,” he said. “Lilith can’t get her hands on Jen here.”

  “And dare I ask why Scrymgeour ventures into the kitchen?”

  “Jen keeps scraps down there for him.”

  “Demon parts?” I asked.

  “Oh, aye. We hack ‘em up fresh an’ everything.” He smiled broadly.

  I laughed.

  Jennifer, in her va-va-voom vixen form, sauntered into the room. “Wow. This place is a real drag. What was I thinking?” She waved one slender arm. The entire room changed. Everything turned white with crystal accents. Behind us, the windows melted into nothing and revealed an ocean view. The sun was setting, casting pink lights on the waves tickling white sand.

  “Better,” she said. She leaned down and hugged Connor from behind. “You healed fast, brother!”

  “Phoebe let me torment her,” he said.

  Jennifer sent me such a knowing look, I popped off the couch and walked to the marble column that had appeared during the instant makeover. I leaned against it and stared at the undulating water.

  Jennifer joined me. Red beams shot out from her and I looked away from the brightness. When I returned my gaze, I scrabbled back and screamed.

  “What? You don’t like dogs?”

  The massive three-headed creature was a Doberman pinscher gone horribly, horribly wrong. I gaped up at the middle head, wishing I could be anywhere but under the ginormous chin of a drooling mutt. The heads on either side of the middle one looked down at me, probably thinking I was a really neat life-sized Phoebe-flavored chew toy.

  She barked and the sound vibrated right through me. Vampire hearing wasn’t always a bonus. I yelped.

  “Jen,” called Connor as he joined me. He took my hand, and I let him hold it.

  She sighed, and her doggy breath gusted over me. I nearly passed out from the stench. Wow. Jennifer really needed a Greenies.

  The dog sat on its haunches and one huge leg came up and scratched behind its pointed ear. “You tell her about the talisman yet?”

  “No,” I said before Connor could open his mouth. “And I don’t know what it has to do with me.”

  “Everything,” said Dog Jennifer.

  That was so enlightening. I looked at Connor, and he shrugged. “I tol’ you, lass, Astria needs to reveal the prophecy to you. It’s not like you trust me, after all.”

  “You haven’t given me much reason to trust you,” I said. “Did it occur to you to just tell me what was going on?”

  “Oh, he couldn’t do that,” said Jennifer in her reverberating gruff voice.

  Connor quelled all three mutts with a look.

  “Why not?”

  He ignored my question, but I filed it away for later. He couldn’t avoid answering me forever. Probably.

  “The talisman is old,” said Connor. “Something Durga made.”

  Surprised, I stared at him. “That’s why the hunters had it?”

  “Self-appointed guardians of Durga’s medallion,” he scoffed. “They took it after she was banned and tried to hide it.”

  “How’d you get it?”

  “He was meant to find the talisman,” said Jennifer proudly. “Astria said
so.”

  That didn’t exactly answer the “how.” “Let me guess. You took off with their treasure, then made them think you were other places. Oh, say, about a month ago?”

  “Aye.”

  “And Lilith wants it because… ?”

  “It’s what Durga used to bind her to hell,” offered Jennifer. “Which is ironic… Isn’t that right, Connor?”

  One corner of his mouth lifted into a grin. “Definitely, little sister.” He rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. “The only way for Lilith to make any trips to the earthly plane was to be called to it by worshipers. Back in the day, all the gods and goddesses had human followers.

  “One particular cult grew very strong. Its female followers practiced blood rituals, and the occasional orgy, o’ course.” Here, he filtered me a smoky look, but I didn’t fall for it. Much.

  “Of course,” I said dryly.

  “Lilith rewarded the head priestess by granting her demon powers. Then she gave her a demon slave. But then the temple was ransacked and destroyed, and her priestesses and worshipers were killed. All but the one she’d blessed – if you want to call it that. She would’ve died, too, but Ruadan the First found her.”

  The red light burst around the dog (er, dogs) and I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I saw the little girl again. She twirled around, then stopped, her blue eyes snaring mine. “Durga turned from her demon goddess and gave her loyalty to the vampire who’d saved her. Lilith wasn’t thrilled, and she… Well, Connor says she threw a big temper tantrum.”

  “A lot of people died in those wars, including many vampires,” said Connor.

  I could barely imagine what it had been like back in the ancient days of civilization. Throughout history, humans fought all the time for territory. Why not paranormals, too? How many times had we fended off the baddies from Broken Heart? It seemed it was the nature of sentient beings to either conquer or protect.

  “Were you there?” I asked Connor.

  He nodded toward his sister. “ ‘ Twas before we existed.”

  “I’m only four hundred years old,” offered Jennifer.

  “Verra young for a demon.”

  She pouted. “You’re only seven hundred years older, Con!”

  “The talisman?” I interrupted in order to forgo a sibling argument. Then I thought, Connor’s eleven hundred years old? Holy crap.

  “Durga made the talisman. Actually, all the Ancients helped her create it,” said Connor. “They needed powerful magic to make it work. They bound Lilith to hell.”

  Patsy had sent a demon to hell, the favorite pet of Durga, an asshole named Andharka. Patsy had some powerful juju; the demon would never come back to the earthly plane unless she compelled him personally. So, if Lilith had been bound to the Pit, and apparently with a lot more oomph, why could she leave it?

  “She just put on a quite a show for someone who can’t get out of hell,” I pointed out.

  “What she did in Broken Heart required a hefty blood sacrifice.” Connor grimaced. “We’re not talking goats, either.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said, horror washing through me. “She’s killing humans.”

  Chapter 14

  “Her new worshipers are making sacrifices to her,” Jennifer corrected. She looked at her brother, her Cupid’s-bow mouth downturned. “Connor says it’s wrong to kill innocents.”

  “It is,” I said. “Very wrong. In fact, you should err on the side of caution and not kill anyone. Or anything. Living, that is.”

  She blinked up at me, her blue eyes guileless. “You can’t kill something that’s already dead,” she said, “or something that’s never been alive.”

  “Well, then you know exactly what I mean.”

  She turned her gaze to Connor, who shrugged. I loosed my hand from his grip and went to sit on the couch. Connor followed, sitting next to me – as in two inches away. He rested his arm along the back of the couch behind my shoulders and looked at me, as if he expected me to challenge his closeness. It actually made me feel safer, though I did stop short of snuggling. I had my pride, after all – a sliver, which was enough to prevent more foolishness.

  Jennifer took the chair catty-corner to the couch, nearest to where I was sitting. She looked at me expectantly, as though I might give her a treat or offer to read to a story. Her gaze was unnerving.

  I looked down at my hands and realized I needed a manicure. I studied my jagged nails and thought about the talisman and Lilith. Jesus. Someone had killed a human for Lilith, and that had opened the portal. She’d been in my kitchen long enough to threaten Connor and have her demon maul me, but even so it had been – what? – maybe ten minutes? One human life hadn’t given her enough time. I had the awful feeling more blood would be spilled in her name.

  I felt sick. How had she found a group of humans willing to do such a thing? What had she promised them?

  “What’s her connection to Asmodeus?” I asked.

  I glanced up in time to see Jennifer and Connor share a look.

  “She’s mated to Asmodeus,” said Connor.

  “Lilith is your dad’s wife?” I absorbed this information. “And you’re the result of an affair with a Scottish fairy. So she hates your guts.”

  “My father’s not a being who denies himself pleasure. He beds a lot of… er, people. But it’s rare that children come about.”

  I looked at Jennifer.

  “Oh, my mother’s Lilith,” she said matter-offactly. “She hates my guts, too.”

  Connor’s expression darkened. I imagined that Jennifer’s story was even less kind than his. After all, he had a mother who loved him. At least, I assumed so.

  He seemed to follow along with my thoughts. “My mother raised me,” he said. “Believe what you like about me, but she’s a good woman who loves me.”

  His tone was terse, inviting no other questions. I guessed Mom was a touchy subject.

  “Time holds no meaning for immortals.” She uttered this with a sigh, as if bored by the concept of eternity. She waved her hand, her pink nail polish glittering in the overhead light. “Mom’s always been… cranky. And Durga was her favorite.”

  “Lilith sent the priestesses after Durga, but they ended up with Amahté’s mate,” said Connor. “Her name was Shamhat.”

  “This is so not my favorite part of the story,” said a female voice.

  I looked up and saw her standing in the doorway that led to the staircase.

  The woman who’d spoken had been first through the door. She was otherworldly: pale skinned, with bow-shaped lips as red as candy, and green eyes as soft as moss. She wore a ribbed green T-shirt, tight black pants, thick-soled black boots, and on her waist was a weapons belt. On one side was a Glock and three cartridges, and on the other a series of small silver daggers. Her raven hair hung in ringlets down her back, like those of a medieval princess. “Beautiful” wasn’t a decent enough word to describe her. The only visible flaw I could see was the jagged pearlescent scar that wrapped around her throat like an ugly necklace. I sensed that she was a vampire, and realized this must be Larsa.

  She noticed the direction of my gaze and quirked an eyebrow. Embarrassed, I looked away, toward the people filing in behind her.

  A short, curvy woman – make that young woman, maybe sixteen or seventeen – with bouncy brunette curls and violet eyes offered us a smile. She wore faded denims and a purple top that matched her eyes. On either side of her were two very familiar-looking people. Well, sorta. The tall, lithe creature on the left was a woman with moon white hair and golden eyes, and the bigger, bulkier dude on the right had the same features. His eyes were a little darker, his mouth thinner than… um, his sister’s. Their clothing was black, too, and struck me as military garb. They were loaded up with all manner of weapons.

  Holy. Freaking. Shit.

  “I know,” said Violet Eyes. I had the insane thought that she would skip toward us à la Shirley Temple and start singing “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” “It’s like looking into a mirror.
” She blinked. “Well, if you were Gabriel Marchand. Only, he’s not here, right?”

  Her accent coated her words lightly, like vinaigrette.

  “Astria,” said the woman, and she was French. “We talked about your focus, oui?”

  “Oh, right. Yes. I’m Astria Vedere,” she said.

  “The prophet.”

  She said it without pride, just rattled it off as though it were an obvious fact, like “the earth is round” or “the sun is hot.”

  “That’s Anise, and he’s Ren. Did I mention they are most definitely the brother and sister of Gabriel Marchand?” She blinked at us owlishly. “Probably not.” She brightened. “You know now, so that’s good.”

  Words tumbled up from my throat and quivered on my tongue, none of them brave enough to issue forth. Gabriel Marchand, the queen’s husband, had thought himself an anomaly. He was only two hundred years old, born from a werewolf mother who’d been attacked by vampires. Loup de sang. Bloodsucking werewolves. The only one of his kind.

  Or so he thought.

  “Triplets.” I was surprised that I’d said the word, that I’d said anything. Thoughts twirled and collided until only fragments floated like debris. It wasn’t much of a leap to assume that Gabriel was a triplet. After, he was the father of triplets, too.

  “Yes!” said Astria clapping. “Only they were given to my great-great-… Um, I think there’s another great?” She paused. Then she shrugged. “… -Grandmother to raise for me.”

  “It was foretold we would be the guardians for Astria,” explained Anise.

  “And Gabriel?”

  “He was meant for the queen,” said Astria.

  “The challenges we face as we fulfill our destinies create within us the resilience we need to do what must be done.”

  What?

  “Looks like your wife is gonna keel over,” said Larsa.

  I wanted to say, “I’m not his wife,” and, “I’m not either gonna keel over,” but neither statement was true. I did feel faint, but it was an emotional thing, not a physical one. I was also married to Connor, like it or not.

  The four newcomers joined us. Astria sat next to Connor, Ren took up his station behind him, and Anise settled into the chair nearest Astria. Larsa scooted into the chair occupied by Jennifer, tossing the little girl into her lap.