The Trouble with Death and Demon Gods, page 3
“Hey guys,” she said, dropping on her knees to hug her pack.
Fred, her terrier-collie cross who was the only mundane dog, stood braced against her arm, his short legs trembling with his excitement while she gave him an ear scratch with her free hand. He hopped away long enough to bounce off Deacon’s thigh in greeting, then flopped onto the ground in front of her for a belly scratch. Pickles, her foo lion disguised as a basset hound, pressed her big head against Cary’s hand as she got her own behind-the-ear scratch. Buck, her golden Lab who was really a demon dog, wagged his thick tail, thumping it against the floor as he got a hug and head scratch.
Coming home to her pack always helped release the frustrations of the day.
Once the welcome greetings finished, everyone—dogs, Deacon, and Cary—all made their way to the kitchen. The movement was habit. She let the dogs out into the backyard for a run and pee break, Deacon put on a pot of coffee for her and got himself a drink, usually milk. The rhythm of “being home” at the end of a day.
She smiled as they moved through the process, so familiar and settling, and more of her grumpiness faded.
Not all of it. But enough she thought she might be able to talk coherently. Maybe. Once she’d taken a few sips of coffee.
They settled in the living room, the dogs back in their beds under the big bay window that looked out onto the backyard, her and Deacon on the big overstuffed couch across from the fireplace, and Cary let that final step in the “coming home” process release the last of her jumping nerves. She settled against Deacon’s side and for a long moment they just sat there, drinking their respective drinks and letting the quiet snuffles of sleeping dogs fill the silence.
“Better?” Deacon asked after a few minutes.
“Better,” she said. “I don’t know what to do about Sheldon. What to make of him.”
“I know.” He let out a long breath. “If it helps, I don’t feel the urge to rip his throat out every time I see him now.”
“Actually, that does help. But also emphasizes the complication of the situation.” She sipped her coffee. He’d made her a pot of hazelnut, and the subtle, nutty aroma filled her senses as she took another deep breath. “I hate waiting too,” she said.
“That I know.”
She smiled and winced at the same time. “Holland is going to try and kill me at his earliest convenience. After torturing me and turning me into a pet.”
“We suspected he would try.”
“Having it confirmed is… I don’t know. Reassuring doesn’t seem like the right word.”
“It’s easier to plan and anticipate when you have all the information.”
“Except I don’t have it all. Because I still don’t know when all this is going to happen.” She waved a hand vaguely in the air. “Only that at some point in the near future, I have to protect someone who will then turn around and try to kill me. And we can’t kill him back. He can’t be killed. Except maybe by his father. But I can’t let his father get him because then even more people die.” She settled closer to Deacon’s side. “I don’t want to die,” she murmured.
Despite having already done it once before, and in the end not remembering much of the experience—like childbirth, or so her sister told her, the memory of the pain had even faded so she didn’t remember any of it that distinctly now—she still didn’t want to go through it again with Holland. Knowing he didn’t just want to kill her somehow made it all worse.
“I won’t let him get you,” Deacon said, pressing his lips against the top of her head. “I’ll keep going for his throat. You’ll have to protect me from his anger. He’ll never get to you.”
She smiled. The weird, but good thing, about Protector powers. They were tricky. Holland knew how to get around them. When she wasn’t protecting someone, she could be killed as easily as anyone else. But when she was protecting someone, getting through her was pretty much impossible. To get around her powers, the person had to want to kill her and no one else. Their intensions mattered. Holland knew that. But he’d have to forgo his desire to kill anyone else within her realm of protection, and if Deacon kept trying to rip out his throat, Holland wouldn’t be able to avoid being a threat to Deacon. Short of allowing his throat to be ripped out repeatedly and ignoring the shifter tearing him to pieces. Which Cary couldn’t see Holland doing.
It might work. Not indefinitely. But it might work.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t solve the long term problem. Holland is…forever. And I’m not. You’re not. He’s got time. And patience that I don’t have. And he’ll just keep coming.”
“We’ll sick the demon hunters on him. Talk to Angie. There has to be something someone can do about him.”
Angie was a witch, not a demon hunter, but she had ties to the demon hunting world that she never talked about. Just recently, Cary had learned—not from Angie but from Marianne who’d found out on accident—that Angie also had a secret boyfriend who was a demon hunter. A secret boyfriend she wasn’t supposed to be seeing, or wasn’t allowed to talk about. Or something like that. Cary wasn’t sure. They hadn’t talked about that little revelation yet. But only because Angie had been out of touch for the last two weeks.
Cary had called her after Sheldon had channeled Holland, to warn Angie that Holland was coming back. She knew Angie avoided demon things as much as she possibly could, and even though there was a convenient demon hunter in town, Cary wanted Angie to know in advance what was coming so she could be safe and away from it all. Angie had taken the news in a way Cary hadn’t expected. She’d gotten very quiet, then said she had to go talk to some people and would be gone for a bit. She’d call when she got back.
Two weeks and no call. Angie was a powerful witch who was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and had done so for longer than Cary had known her. Still, Cary worried. With everything happening, she worried a lot.
And of course, thanks to his super shifter sense of smell, Deacon zeroed in on the new direction of her worry without her having to say anything out loud.
“She hasn’t texted?” he asked.
“Just that once a week ago.” To let Cary know she was okay but still working on things. Whatever those things were. “I know she’s fine. But…there’s a lot going on. I warned her about Holland to keep her out of the demon stuff. I’m afraid she’s gone and put herself right back into…whatever it is in her past she won’t talk about. For me. And I really really hate that idea.”
“She loves you. Just like you love her. You’d face your past for her?”
“Of course. But I don’t have one to face.” Before the Protector gig—which Angie knew all about—Cary had been a vet tech rethinking her career choice. She didn’t have deeply buried secrets from a “time before.” But if she did, “Of course I’d face anything for her.”
“Would you expect her to do any less?”
“Stop making logical sense and good points,” she grumped. “It’s annoying.”
He grinned and nuzzled her neck, which had the duel effect of relaxing her and distracting her from her grumpiness. Clever clever man.
“I just want them all safe,” she murmured.
“All who? The girls.”
“All everyone. Marianne, Lucy, and Angie. The leopards. Jaxer and Eriana. Wisat and Liruk. The world. You. Just…everyone. I’m a little tired. And I’m tired of the world continually being on the brink of destruction. It’d be delightful if all the mayhem would just settle down for like, I don’t know, a month. Maybe two.” She considered that. “Actually, I’d prefer a few years. A few quiet years where the world isn’t trying to end. That’d be really nice.”
He squeezed her shoulders. “Until then,” he said, as if that would actually come to pass one day and it wasn’t just a pipe dream, “we’ll manage this current crisis. And you’re better prepared to face Holland this time. We know what we’re getting into at least. You’ve been training more with Lucy. And Rory.”
Rory was a golden dragon—not a shifter, an actual honest-to-god ancient dragon. A good one. Who fought alongside an actual sword-wielding hero named Joan. And when Rory wasn’t busy fighting legendary monsters with Joan, he showed up in Portland to help train Cary in the ways of dealing with the magic she absorbed.
“I am finally making some progress with that at least,” she said. “That’s something.”
Rory was pretty sure all the magic absorption while also channeling Protector magic, which kept her from getting killed by all the magic she absorbed, had changed Cary on a fundamental level. But they still weren’t sure how. Or what all this had done to her. She still felt perfectly normal. Like herself. But apparently, she wasn’t the same self she’d been when she got tricked into becoming a Protector.
She had, however, managed to release magic on purpose three times in the last two weeks. Finally! This had been a big worry. That she absorbed magic, it built in her cells, and if she didn’t release it, all that magic would kill her. Up to now, she’d always released big surges of magic without any control over the process. She’d hit a breaking point and then just…release everything in a big wave of mostly destruction.
Which wasn’t the best way to deal with the magic absorption problem.
But! There was a light at the end of that tunnel. Rory had adjusted his teaching to take into account that her cells were changed. That she was changed. And even though they didn’t know what all this had done to her, the change in the way he taught her to release magic had worked.
He’d had to let her absorb some dragon magic first, though, and that had been…weird. Dragon magic wasn’t like other magic. Not that she could usually tell the difference between magicks. But Rory’s kind wasn’t something she had absorbed before, and knowing that had been a little disconcerting.
She’d managed though, taking in just a little bit—even a little bit of dragon magic was strong—and with Rory’s coaching, sent it back into him. Well, most of it. He said she “dropped” some, whatever that meant. He didn’t explain. But she wasn’t holding his magic in her cells anymore and that was a relief.
After sort of mastering that—okay, she managed it once and he’d declared that good enough—he’d started teaching how to use the magic he gave her. And that was pretty cool.
The process Angie, and then Rory, had been trying to teach her before was just to release and let the magic go back into the ground. But that never worked for her in any sort of planned way. What she could do, though, as it turned out, was use the magic. Throw it or cast it or whatever, the way an actual magic wielder might use their magic. Even do small spells. Almost like she was a magic wielder.
The ability was temporary because once she released the magic, it didn’t rebuild in her the way it would in someone born with magic. She didn’t innately possess it, so she didn’t keep making it. But by using it in the same way someone with innate magic would use it, she could let it out of her body without mowing down everyone in the vicinity.
Which was good.
The tricky part was that she absorbed all kinds of magic. So she didn’t just have to learn, say, how to cast spells like a witch, or form an energy bolt like a wizard. She needed to learn a combination of techniques to handle the hodgepodge of magic that all swirled together in her cells. How she had to use the magic was as unique as her ability to absorb it.
But she’d been practicing. And it was working. At least with dragon magic. Which was a huge relief.
“When does Rory come back?” Deacon asked.
“He didn’t say. Depends on his and Joan’s work. There’s apparently still a goblin issue, and they need to be on hand for that.”
“Fair enough. Not calling you in to help again, are they?”
“I will if they ask, but I think that last incident was special circumstances.” She’d needed to protect some kids while Joan and Rory did their thing with the most recent goblin king’s chaos. That was how she and Rory had met.
“You okay with that? Not knowing when he’ll be back?”
She chuckled. Deacon knew her so well. “Of course not, but not knowing what might happen next in my life has become pretty standard practice. I’m used to it even if I don’t like it. What I really really hate is knowing I have this big epic confrontation just…out there. And it’s not happening.”
“My mother wants to send some more leopards to Portland.”
The seeming non sequitur had her turning to look at him. “Why?”
“So they’ll be on hand. If you need backup.”
“I do not want the leopards in danger because of me. Thank your mother for me, very politely, and then say no thanks.”
“We’ve discussed this before. She’s going to do what she thinks is right, no matter what. And right now, what she thinks is right is making sure there’s backup for her son’s mate.” He set a finger very gently against her mouth when she opened it.
She scowled because the gesture was a distraction on more than just the keeping-her-quiet front. His touch always distracted her in sexy ways, and she lost too many arguments because of that.
“Before you argue,” he said, his voice deep, “you should know, I agree with my mother on this. You will have backup. From us. We, all of the leopards who will move closer to Portland, all of them want to have your back. So stop arguing with us.”
She let her shoulders relax but not her pout. “I don’t want them hurt.”
“And they don’t want you hurt. So see, it’s all fair and balanced.”
“What did I say about making logical points?”
His serious expression softened into a grin that made her stomach do a funny dance.
“That grin isn’t even a little bit fair, you know,” she said. “What do you have to say about that?”
“I’m glad you think so?”
She snorted. Then leaned into him for a kiss. A kiss she definitely needed tonight.
If only it hadn’t been interrupted by the tingling down her spine.
And the unexpected, but long overdue, appearance of her bosses.
4
“Where the hell have you two been?” Cary demanded, standing from the couch and setting her mug on the coffee table. “What the hell is going on?”
She hadn’t seen her bosses since the whole Sheldon-Holland incident. They hadn’t even dropped in randomly to give her another job while everyone waited on Holland to arrive. They hadn’t brought her news from the Nagas. They had just vanished, suddenly, practically in the middle of a conversation. And not returned.
Which was really weird and extremely suspicious.
“Protector,” Liruk greeted with a formal nod, her shoulders stiff and straight.
She looked more… Cary couldn’t put her finger on it. Tense? Liruk was always the more demanding of her two bosses. She’d softened somewhat over the course of this year—which actually freaked Cary out a little—but for the most part, Liruk was the boss that made Cary feel like she wasn’t working hard enough at her job and should really be doing better.
Wisat was always the more diplomatic boss, who took the softer route in his dealings with Cary. She’d finally gotten to see their good cop-bad cop routine from the outside not too long ago, and she’d been very impressed with it. When it wasn’t directed at her.
At the moment, however, Wisat looked as stiff and closed off as Liruk, his usual gentle smile absent.
Even more suspicious.
She could never fully read either of her bosses, though, not unless they wanted her to. They were North American Fae, and spectacularly Fae looking. Liruk, with her long pearl white hair, golden brown skin, and golden horns poking out of her hair was everything white and gold. Only her eyes—a luminous shade of green—broke the color coordination. Wisat was almost her photonegative opposite. Where Liruk was white, Wisat was black—black hair, black robe—and where Liruk was gold, Wisat was red—red skin, red velvet-covered antlers formed into a halo over his head. The one thing they shared was the unreally green eyes. She still to this day had no idea if that was a trait common to their species of Fae, or if they were related and it was a familial trait.
Outside of them being Fae, and the fact that they’d created Protectors, she really didn’t know that much about her bosses. Certainly not on a personal level. She’d worked with them for nearly seven years now. She had two more months of her seventh year test and then she’d have chalked up exactly seven years of working for them. And she didn’t even know if they were related or just two individuals who worked together.
That was kind of sad, now that she thought about it.
“What’s going on?” she asked again, her voice quieter to match their suspiciously reticent mood. “You both look… I don’t know. Upset. Nervous. What’s going on? Is it Holland?”
“This is… Not Holland,” Wisat said. “And it is not what we would have…”
“The timing is poor,” Liruk put in. She hissed something under her breath that sounded like, “Impossible.” But Cary couldn’t be sure.
“I’m really going to need a full explanation soon.” She tried to rein in her impatience. She really did. But she had so very little patience left after the last two weeks, it was hard not to snap at them. “The hemming and hawing is going to make me snarl.”
Wisat’s mouth ticked up briefly at one side, a very faint show of amusement. But then his expression turned serious again.
Deacon had remained seated right after her bosses showed up, his way of trying not to be too threatening. He didn’t always manage it. Sometimes he stood at her back like an angry predator ready to pounce. But her bosses and Deacon had a kind of…understanding between them. Deacon was on her side, no matter what, and they didn’t even attempt to keep him from helping her. Technically, in her seventh year, she wasn’t supposed to get help. But that rule applied to her mentor. To her bosses. Not to her boyfriend.
In all honesty, she’d had a lot more help this year than she’d been expecting, all from friends who weren’t technically forbidden to help her. She wasn’t sure she’d have made it this far without that help. And she wasn’t sure what that said about her as a Protector—she always felt a little unable for her job—but she was still here. So far anyway.
