Celestial Shadows, page 7
part #4 of Celestial Marked Series
His face twitched. “Excuse me? I mentioned nothing about demon names.”
“They’ll call your name and you’ll be powerless to resist, you said.”
His chains rattled as he attempted to raise a hand. “I meant they’ll call for you, fool. And they did. Frankly, I think a demon name would have provided an advantage, but I can’t say I know whether that option is available to humans. You might have noticed none live on Babylon.”
Curiosity rose, despite my best efforts. “Was I the first human you met?”
He gave a grim smile. “My brother still hasn’t told you all of our history. His time with you might be shorter than he thinks.”
“I don’t know, we’re both resilient. More than Casthus thinks, anyway.”
“It could have as easily been my brother in my place. He might think himself superior, but we’re equals.”
“It wouldn’t have been him,” I said, “because I would have stopped you first.”
“And again, you fail to understand that you’re still human. The arch-demons have laid waste to worlds and burned the ashes.”
“They clearly didn’t do that to every world,” I said. “They have limits. I don’t suppose you know Casthus’s weakness?”
This time he burst into harsh laughter. “You think I wouldn’t have used it if I did?”
“You just lectured me a moment ago about getting cocky about standing up to the arch-demons. Sounds like you’re just bitter because you couldn’t even control the fallen.”
“The realm was cut off from heaven and hell,” he said. “The fallen were our penance, and with the other higher demons gone, they lived. They’re my dear father’s property, so he can do whatever he likes with them.”
“So the fallen deserve to be tortured just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“They deserve the mercy of death,” he rasped. “It’s a punishment that they continue to exist at all.”
I swallowed. “That’s not your call to make. The Divinities—”
“The divine ones are as good as dead, celestial.”
They wouldn’t be able to screw with me if they weren’t alive. Of course, Nikolas wouldn’t have told him what Clover had implied—that the Divinities had been the ones to set things up so the arch-demons would go head to head with one another for their own entertainment. It was entirely likely that Casthus had come back to Babylon for similar reasons. Though the events themselves had seemed the precursor to something worse, it was hard to tell how much of it was the arch-demons conveniently seizing control of the opportunity to make a nuisance of themselves.
“If you say so,” I said. “You did a terrible job keeping an eye on the fallen, so I’d be glad they aren’t here.”
“Devi, dearest, there is nothing the divine might do to me which would even come close to the torture that monster inflicted on my brother and me.”
My stomach twisted. “He tortured Nikolas, too?”
Did Casthus know his other son’s weakness? Even I didn’t.
“He’s saving it,” said Zadok, his gaze dropping to the floor. “The fool will continue to lie in front of our father in the hope of gaining his favour. I’d suggest that you don’t do the same, Devi. You’re more breakable than we are.”
He looked pretty damn broken to me. I couldn’t look at him any longer. I backed out of the room and found Nikolas standing in the dark, his eyes glowing faintly. He closed the door behind me, sealing it shut. The outside of the wood was covered in interlocking chains which snapped back into place when he moved them. Not a trapping spell I was familiar with. Ordinarily I’d have studied the chains in fascination to see how they worked, but not now.
“He said…” I swallowed hard, moving out of earshot of the room. “He said you were tortured, too.”
“I wouldn’t call it torture,” Nikolas said. “Zadok provoked him. I tried to intervene, so he had his demon pin me down while the other burned Zadok.”
“You probably shouldn’t have told me that. Because I’m going to have a lot of trouble dealing with Casthus next time he summons me without attempting to burn his eyes out.”
“He’s immune to celestial fire. All arch-demons are.”
“Of course. Wouldn’t want to give us any advantages in this war. Our enemies are invincible and our allies are indifferent bastards.” I gave a bitter smile. “Zadok knows that, at least.”
His weird mood swings got to me more than I cared to admit. He didn’t seem to feel any regret over what he’d done, which made his offers of advice seem suspicious to say the least. He had more to gain than I did, since he didn’t care about earth. But I couldn’t afford to let him distract me.
“Where in hell is Javos?” I asked Nikolas. “He might not need to know Zadok’s here, but I think he’ll want to hear about Abyss at the very least.”
“He’ll be at the Harpy’s Nest.”
Right. He would be. The most popular warlock haunt, the Harpy’s Nest, shouldn’t be my top choice of destination considering that I’d been the one who’d found the warlock’s dead body, but Javos needed to know the latest developments in the nether realms. And I needed a few drinks after the day I’d had. “Then let’s go.”
7
My master plan lasted less than a minute, because Nikolas disappeared into Babylon again before we reached the bar. Very luckily, I was the one driving. One second he was in the passenger seat, and the next, he’d disappeared into shadows.
“Great,” I muttered. “Wonderful timing there.”
There was little point in following him after the shadow arch-demon had thoroughly dismissed me, so I parked a couple of streets away and walked to the Harpy’s Nest alone.
The pub was packed out with warlocks, and there were forked tails and horns everywhere I looked. I crossed to the bar, where the punky haired vampire owner regarded me over the blood-red glass he was polishing. “I haven’t seen you for a while, Devi.”
“No blood cocktails, thanks,” I said before he could make his usual offer. “I’m looking for Javos.”
“He just left.”
You might know it. It was getting on for midnight. Shadow demons kept antisocial hours. Maybe it was for the best that Javos hadn’t got suspicious enough to go investigating Nikolas’s house for missing warlocks and found Zadok instead, but you’d think he’d be interested in the situation on Babylon.
“Devi!” Fiona pushed her way through the crowd, her eyes wide. “I heard you were here. You have to leave. The warlocks—”
Two warlocks shoved their way in behind her. Both were more human-like than the average warlock, forked tails aside. Muscled frames, rugged features, and oozing sensuality from every pore. Oh, crap. Incubi. Similar to Nikolas’s lure power, their magic overwhelmed their victims and turned them into drooling idiots. Even my celestial power gave me no defence.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, ignoring the tingling sensation in my fingertips as their magic caressed my demon mark. In any other scenario, I’d knock their heads together and toss them outside, but there were at least a hundred other warlocks in the bar, all of them likely to jump to their kin’s defence.
“You killed him,” growled the incubus on the left.
Oh no. They’d heard I’d found the body. I should have guessed, since word of the murder had ripped through the warlock community. “I didn’t kill anyone. Turn your magic off and nobody gets hurt.”
The incubus in the centre bared his teeth. “Your demigod won’t save you now.”
Magic poured from his hands, sliding over my skin like silk. My mind blanked as sensual thoughts caressed every inch of me—and Fiona smashed into me, knocking me into the bar. Stars exploded before my eyes, and sparks literally flew as the magic of the incubi clashed into one another, hitting the bartender and several patrons, too.
“Ow.” I groaned, shaking off X-rated images. “Fiona. Speak to me.” Crap. She was human, which likely made her more vulnerable, but even the warlocks weren’t immune to the lure of an incubus. Several of them had fallen to the floor, crawling towards the incubi wearing slack-jawed expressions, including the bartender.
Oh no. Anyone in the room with any level of attraction towards sexy male warlocks would start stripping at any moment, and I could live a long and happy life without that kind of mental scarring, thanks.
My celestial mark chose that moment to kick into action. Light blazed to the ceiling, and the warlocks scattered, yelling. So they did have a sense of self-preservation after all. Rubbing the growing lump on the back of my head, I detached myself from the bar. My back was sticky with the residue of spilled warlock cocktails and Divinity-knew what else.
One warlock remained behind—the leading incubus.
“I knew it.” His eyes glowed with menace. “That magic of yours killed him.”
He lunged in a blur of light. I took back my thought about self-preservation and grabbed his arm with my demon-marked hand, throwing him over my shoulder. He landed on his back, hard, and I punched him in the jaw. My fist smoked with residual energy, and his eyes rolled back in his skull. As he fell back, half-conscious, I swayed a little. “Look in the mirror,” I told him. “Your face is what happens when I tone down my power. Plainly, it doesn’t match the killer’s mark.”
Muttering rose up, making me aware that the crowd hadn’t actually left. The ones who hadn’t been hit by the warlocks’ spell had backed to the edges of the room, and swiftly got out of the way when Javos shoved his way through, his expression murderous.
“Devi Lawson. Why am I not surprised to find you surrounded by bodies?”
“I just saved you from a major lawsuit, dickhead. Those incubi were seconds from using their magic on a human.” They’d also possibly given me a concussion, judging by the growing pain in the back of my head.
Fiona poked her head up from behind the bar. “DivinityWatch would take everyone in this bar to pieces if the story got out that someone nearly assaulted the saviour of Haven City.”
“What in damnation did you bring the human here for?” Javos glared at me.
“She didn’t. I came to warn her,” Fiona said. She didn’t seem to have suffered any effects from the incubus lures, thank the Divinities. “I was with Rachel until a second ago.”
“And I came looking for you,” I added.
“You picked a bad moment,” she said. “That’s what I was going to tell you—they found another body.”
Brilliant.
“This way,” growled Javos, beckoning me outside. “Both of you. Now.”
“Chill out.” I gave up trying to wipe cocktail residue onto my jeans and went after him before the other warlocks recovered from their shock. “Who? An incubus, by any chance?”
“Same marks on the body,” Javos said harshly, shouldering his way through the door. “What were you thinking, coming here?”
“To find you,” I said. “I thought you’d want to know what Casthus said to me in our meeting.”
“I assume you didn’t aggravate him, since you’re still alive,” he growled. “You aren’t even capable of dealing diplomatically with the warlocks in this city, let alone the rest of the nether realms.”
“Not when they try to kill me, no.” I dug my hands in my pockets and walked on. Rachel sidled up beside me. “Nice of you to intervene.”
“I really hate incubi. Besides, you had it covered, and I didn’t want you to set my head on fire.”
“Fair enough. I’m driving back, but Javos, you’ll have to lie down in the back seat if you want to ride in my car.”
He grunted. “Drive back to the guild. No detours.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, with a mock salute, and ran back to my vehicle before he changed his mind. “Seriously? Another dead warlock? Surely they know I wasn’t even here.”
“They’re edgy, Devi,” Fiona said. “Something about a public fight in that bar a while ago…”
“Against demon-infected vampires,” I corrected. “Pretty sure I helped everyone, actually. Some gratitude.”
When we got back to the warlocks’ guild, Javos beckoned me into his office.
“Skip the lecture,” I said to him. “I know I shouldn’t have been in that bar, but since they apparently all think I’m guilty, they’d have come looking for me anyway. You know perfectly well that I’m not the killer. There aren’t even any Grade Fours at the guild at the moment, and none of the others are trained on their level.”
Not until they replenished their forces, anyway. I didn’t like that every preternatural in the city knew that the guild was greatly weakened following the battle. No wonder DivinityWatch’s people were so keen to improve the public’s morale. The celestial guild had been a long way from perfect, but it’d been at the centre of the fight against the demons in everyone’s eyes, including their own. It wouldn’t surprise me if the murderer knew, too, and was taking advantage on purpose.
“You’re free to pursue your own leads against your fellow celestials,” said Javos. “But I don’t need to tell you that you’re not to keep any information from me, even if it implicates your friends.”
“The celestials aren’t my friends. And you’d better believe I’m planning to get to the bottom of this. I’m not fond of murder accusations, believe me.”
“Then you need to stop showing up at murder sites. I’ll take your request into consideration, but if I see evidence of the killer myself, I will take action.”
Translation: he’d rip them to pieces. “So what was this second murder?”
“I’m still waiting for the details, but it sounds like the death was the same as the first one. The same… handprints.”
Oh boy. “It’s a setup,” I said. “Someone’s trying to inflame old tensions. It’s obvious.”
“Would you bet your life on that?”
I exhaled in a sigh. “Javos, I’ve had a day of it already. The shadow demon tried to scare me to death, his fiery friend tried to kill me, I got thrown into a bar by a horny incubus and I have some unidentifiable crap all over my jacket and probably a concussion, too. Let me know about the body when you have the details. Okay?”
I got out of his office before he started another lecture, finding Rachel and Fiona waiting in the corridor.
“That went well,” I muttered. “You’d think he assumes I set myself up as a murder suspect because I obviously don’t have anything else going on in my life. Which is complete bullshit.”
“Ignore him.” Rachel shrugged. “You’re more qualified than him to deal with this investigation. That’s why he’s pissed at you. It’s supposed to be his job.”
“He’s welcome to it,” I said. “What possessed you to bring Fiona to the Harpy’s Nest? You know she hasn’t had the best experiences with preternatural bars.”
“Precisely,” said Rachel. “I wanted to show her it’s not all violence and murder. Her abilities mean she’s going to be part of this world one way or another, so she decided to come with me.”
I wasn’t convinced. Fiona might not be as naive about all things netherworld as she used to be, but it’d be a long time before she ever trusted a warlock. She was still incredibly wary around Javos, though she seemed to get on fine with Nikolas and Rachel. Her human life had been snatched away suddenly enough that she still needed to adjust.
“Ask me first next time,” I said.
“I’m right here, you know,” Fiona said wryly. “Where’s Nikolas, anyway?”
“Babylon. Again.” Worry squirmed inside me. Casthus hadn’t made a move against either of us earlier, but maybe he wanted to speak to his son alone. And both of them had certainly pissed him off. There’s nothing you can do about it now. My presence wouldn’t help, and I hadn’t the faintest idea how to stop him and Abyss from wrecking both realms if they started a war with one another. “What a day. Hang on… who’s watching Zadok?”
Rachel gave me an alarmed look. “Nobody. I thought Niko was with him.”
“I thought he asked you to watch him.”
She pulled out her phone. “Ah. Missed call. The bar was noisy.”
“I swear, if he gets out…”
“He won’t,” she said confidently. “I’ll check up on him. You should probably sort your friend out—she’s bleeding.”
I spun around to see Fiona tug her sleeve down.
“You didn’t say,” I said accusingly to Fiona.
“I’m fine. You should probably stop that demigod from breaking out. I can hang on until we reach the house.”
I resigned myself to driving to Nikolas’s house without having the chance to ask Javos for more details on the latest murder. I doubted any demons wanted to talk to me after the debacle in the bar, and Javos himself was in such a foul mood that stopping Zadok from breaking out was the priority. The second murder could come later.
When we reached the house, Rachel immediately ran upstairs. “It’s okay. He’s still there. I’ll redo the wards.”
“Good.” I flopped back onto the sofa, suddenly exhausted. Constant adrenaline spikes did that to you. “Fiona. The first aid kit’s on the second shelf.”
“Got it.” She walked over to the mini lab I’d constructed in the corner of the living room. “I’m glad you’re okay. And Zadok. I didn’t want to stay here alone with him. He was screaming and rattling the chains, so Rachel offered to take me out. She didn’t leave me alone, not like last time.”
“You deserve to have some fun. Just maybe hold off on the warlock bars until you have more control over your magic. And until I’m absolved of these murders I never committed.” I shrugged off my jacket. Sure enough, it’d turned neon blue-green from whatever cocktail I’d landed on when I’d been thrown into the bar. Since my vision wasn’t blurry, I assumed I didn’t have a concussion after all, but it probably helped that I still had some of Nikolas’s regenerative magic rattling around my demon mark somewhere.
Fiona picked up the bottle containing the warlock-made healing potion and squeezed some onto her hand. “Of course you’re not the killer. Javos should know better.”
“You’re handling this well,” I added to her. “I’m glad you didn’t end up as incubus bait. I thought their lure hit you.”
