Mortal Magic, page 5
“I am an alpha. I can test her,” Colton snapped.
Steele’s eyes narrowed on his son. “Your attachment is understandable. A fledgling creates a special bond, but the clan is nervous. I don’t want any mistakes.”
“What are they nervous about? If she has no animal, she will simply be part of the reaper clan. That is no longer a death sentence,” Colton said.
Steele glanced towards the trees. A cougar lay on a branch, casually watching them. “They want anything demon related to be eradicated. They are concerned a demon turn will result in our destruction.”
Colton growled. “That is ridiculous and short-sighted.”
Steele’s eyes flashed. “Is it? We are on the brink of war.”
“Yet that has nothing to do with Riley.”
Steele looked Riley over slowly. “I won’t make any rash decisions but we are in unprecedented territory.”
“No, we aren’t. Riley isn’t the first woman to survive the transition. We agreed at the last council meeting to let nature take its course if a female is bitten.”
Steele’s jaw ticked. “Dannika was turned from reaper venom. Riley is both a woman and demon turned. We have no idea why she survived.”
“This is ridiculous. I will talk to Dannika myself. I doubt she will share your hypocrisy,” Colton snapped.
“You would go against my wishes? My orders?” Steele asked incredulously.
“Yes. Riley is my fledgling. My priority,” Colton growled.
Black mist rolled off Steele’s shoulders. “There are no records of a demon turning a human. Shifters bitten by a demon became the infected. A disease thrust on humanity.”
Riley had been so quiet, Colton almost forgot she was there. “What are the infected?”
“The infected shifters had no demon soul and no animal. They were demon bitten, but had nothing to balance the madness. Reapers are capable of cohesive thinking, provided they’re not starving. The infected had no reason. There was only hunger, a gluttonous need to kill and feed,” Colton said.
“And the humans bitten by a demon?” she asked.
Colton rubbed his eyes. “They all died. Steele is right. A human has never survived a demon bite.”
Steele threw his hands in the air. “This isn’t personal, Riley. I hold you no ill will, but your existence is impossible.”
Riley shrugged. “Yet, here I am.”
Steele’s eyes hardened. “Yes, you are, but what guarantees do I have that you won’t turn on my clan?”
Riley arched an eyebrow. “Are you asking me to prove I’m not a monster?”
“Yes,” Steele said.
Riley stepped towards him with her arms on her hips. “You go first.”
CHAPTER 10
Riley’s fingernails bit into her hand. A primal fury burned behind her eyes as she met Steele’s accusing stare, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of acting like a monster. The pain as her nails bit through her flesh calmed her.
She couldn’t maintain the angry rush of adrenaline, it seeped from her body, leaving her with a sense of rejection. There was a part of her that recognized that Steele’s approval was important. This leader had welcomed every other shadow warrior to his clan except her. Maybe she was a monster. Color swept through her face as she turned away.
Colton moved to her side. “Riley, you’re not a monster, and if Steele continues with this line of questioning, we will leave.”
Steele’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”
Colton met his father’s heart stare. “I am deadly serious. She is mine.”
Steele looked between them as if seeing something for the first time. “We need to investigate her heritage. Dannika had a connection to the shadow shifter world. Riley must be a descendant of the priestess. Just because her current parents were not part of the Haitian community doesn’t mean that an ancestor wasn’t.”
Colton nodded. “I am all for investigating her background.”
Steele’s voice was calm and cordial when he spoke to Riley. “I apologize for my outburst. The sooner we can justify your transition, the sooner I can put the clan at ease.”
Riley dropped her hands, feeling the tissues in her hand heal. “I understand their concern, but I don’t know how to reassure them. I’m not sure what I am.”
Steele moved to the chair in the living room. He flicked his hand and the cougar lying in the tree jumped to a lower branch before disappearing. “It’s best for everyone if we find out. Are you sure your mother didn’t have any Haitian connections?”
Riley and Colton took a seat opposite of Steele. She folded her hands in her lap before she spoke. “She had a friend who was Haitian growing up, but she died before I was born. Mom told me her name, but I can’t remember off the top of my head.”
“I’m more interested in her bloodline than her friends, but it’s worth checking out. Can you tell me about your mother’s death?” Steele asked.
Though she had tried many times, Riley couldn’t forget that day. The moment she walked into the small yellow kitchen and saw her dad leaning over a glass of vodka. She’d known something is wrong. Her father never drank in the afternoon, and he was supposed to be at work.
Her fears had been confirmed when he looked up at her with red swollen eyes. It was the first and only time she saw her father cry. He’d witnessed things he would never talk about overseas in the military, yet his tear-streaked face couldn’t lie. His soul was crushed.
He’d indicated for her to sit down in the oak chair opposite of his. He swirled his drink in his hand, and the sound of the ice cubes clinking together had sent shivers running through her body.
“I just got home from school. My dad was waiting for me. He explained that my mother’s body was found in a dumpster near the homeless shelter.”
Steele nodded. “I’m more interested in why she was killed. Did the investigation turn up any leads?”
Riley glanced out the window, watching a starling flit from branch to branch. “Those first few months were hard on my father and me. I was acting out, and he was drinking to dull the pain. My mother was a caring, vivacious woman who left a hole in our hearts when she left. While my dad would never have discussed the gruesome nature of her death with me, I knew it must’ve been bad. He would get phone calls, updates from the lead detective. Sometimes he would slam the phone down and curse. Once he smashed his drink in the sink.”
Colton’s face narrowed. “Did he ever hurt you?”
Riley’s eyebrows arched. “No. He was devastated, but he got himself together. If anything, he was overprotective of me. About six months after her death, he started volunteering at the church, and I was transferred to their private school. I missed my friends from the public school, but made new ones. Still, I don’t think either one of us truly recovered from mom’s death. There was always a missing piece of my soul. Maybe finding out who killed her would’ve helped both of us.”
Colton laced his fingers with hers. “No child should lose their parent at such a young age, but murder makes that loss so much worse. Senseless.”
“Yes, it does. I think dad continued to look for her killer. He was careful not to bring me into it, but I found receipts for a gun and some specialized bullets he had made. He hadn’t carried a weapon since he left the military and his duties at the church discouraged gun use.”
“Did your father keep a file, or locker, with his findings?” Steele asked.
Riley put her finger to her lip. “He still has a desk at the church. The drawers have locks on them.”
“That’s a good place to start. What about at home?”
“A couple of years after mom died, one of the church properties came available. The parish owns the property for the school, the church, and three small houses. We moved into one of them. I was looking for my own place when dad was diagnosed. When dad was moved to the care facility, I told the church I would start looking for a new place, but never got around to it. They have been really good to me.”
Colton squeezed her knee. “It sounds like you had a loving community to help you through the trauma.”
“We did. After I started my schooling at the church, I began to rebuild my life. I still felt like an outsider sometimes, but I had friends and dad started a support group for people recovering after trauma. Mostly people who had lost loved ones in a violent manner. Helping other people was good for him. It helped him find his way back,” she said.
Both men stood abruptly when shouts echoed in the wind.
Colton’s eyes narrowed. “Someone is under attack.” Steele dissolved and was gone in a second.
Riley was about to speak when Colton’s shadow enveloped her and her molecules dissolved at his command. They raced through the shadow pathway, lurching to a stop underneath a thick evergreen. She grabbed her stomach, waiting for the rolling sensation to pass. “Next time give me a warning,” she hissed.
She noticed the difference in the forest immediately. When they had passed earlier, she’d heard the night crickets and hooting owls echo in the night. Now, the breeze itself seemed to hold its breath in the eerie silence.
Colton put his hand on her back. “I’m sorry, but I smell blood.” He took her hand and led her toward the copper smell in the air.
Growls echoed through the trees, spurning Colton to sprint towards the sound. She ran after him, displaying an agility she’d never possessed in her human life. She flowed over the ground as if she was a wood nymph born to the forest.
Colton stopped abruptly, grabbing her before she run over the man laying amongst the twigs and rotting vegetation. She put her hand over her mouth, to still her gag reflex.
The man lay on his stomach with blood covering his back. His head lay on its side a foot from his body with milky unseeing eyes. His jaw locked in its last scream.
“What did this?” Riley asked.
Colton knelt beside the body, inspecting the fleshy, oozing exposed neck. “It wasn’t a blade. The wound is too ragged. I’m guessing it was demon claws.”
She turned away from the gruesome scene. “Did you know him?”
“I know every member of my clan. Donald was a fledgling. He was too inexperienced to fight a soldier demon. They are supposed to hunt in groups. I need to find out who the senior member of this hunting party was.” He stood, surveying the forest.
A scream vibrated through the trees before they sprinted towards the sound.
CHAPTER 11
Riley stopped before the melee of fighting bodies. Screams pierced the silence before a shadow warrior decapitated the demon he was fighting. A putrid smell infected the air, as if she were inhaling Sulphur. Black blood sprayed from the demon’s headless body, landing on healthy green foliage beneath the combatants’ feet. The shrubs withered when they came in contact with the acidic substance.
She couldn’t count how many shadow warriors were fighting the oily skinned demons. Some were large, with horns on their heads, while others were smaller and less muscular. Both had long claws and growled and bit at their opponents.
Colton rushed the monster closest to him as Riley’s gaze fell on the demon who had changed her life forever.
“Priestess,” Halak said.
Riley backed away as he attempted to thread his way through the melee of bleeding men and growling demons. She was so focused on her attacker that she didn’t notice the exposed root cresting the forest floor. She stumbled backward before regaining her balance.
Halak’s eyes remained on her when he smiled. “Retrieve the priestess.”
Riley’s legs were yanked from beneath her as a black tentacle wrapped around her ankles. She turned to the owner of the oily rope.
The demon was smaller than the soldiers and while its skin appeared to have the same sticky consistency as its brethren, its fingers stretched out like black silly putty, ensnaring her in its web.
Dark lips curled over its serrated teeth as venom dripped from its fangs. The demon moved its arm, attempting to retract the oily limbs and pull Riley to him.
Riley grasped at the roots embedded in the forest floor. Her fingernails bit into her hands and arms hyper-extended as the demon continued to try to reel her toward him. The macabre pulley system was effective, but she held the deep roots in a death grip, leaving her body pulled painfully taut and immobile.
Their standoff had the demon growling low from the exertion. He inched closer. His body created a flitting sound as his ankles made their way through the low bushes. Dry twigs cracked under his feet as the sound grew louder.
She was about to call out to Colton, but he was fighting a large demon similar to Halak. Black mist rolled off his shadow warrior’s shoulders as the claw marks on his chest dripped with black blood.
Riley searched the forest floor, looking for anything she could use as a weapon. The small boulder was round and too large to throw, but it was the only thing within reach. She used one hand to pry the large stone from the surrounding earth, using all her strength to slam it down on the oily rope wrapped around her legs.
The demon screamed as its tentacle-like fingers retracted and its eyes blazed with the red fury. “You will pay for that. Larkel hurt you before Deruthel use you.”
Riley scrambled to get her feet beneath her and stand. Her hands were in front of her as she moved with her opponent. Keeping a static distance between them. “Is talking about yourself in the third person a sign of vanity or stupidity?”
Larkel snarled, exposing his fangs before his hand shot out, extending a barbed tentacle.
Riley leapt sideways, narrowly avoiding the barb as it whipped through the air. When he sent a second tentacle sailing toward her, she dove to the ground, rolling across the exposed stones and dead branches.
She almost believed she’d get away until the third tentacle wrapped around her arm, with the spiked barb embedding in her skin.
Her scream echoed through the forest as her stomach rolled from the pain. She was dragged along the ground, unable to get a handhold as her body fought to stay conscious. Her vision wavered as the fire burning through her blood, turned her stomach in knots.
The shadow warrior that coalesced behind the demon, was larger than any she’d seen. His blade whipped through the air before it embedded in Larkel’s back.
The demon screamed in a high-pitched and unearthly tone before he crumpled to the ground and his tentacles retracted.
The shadow warrior who killed him shifted to his human form. “My name is Stern. Are you all right?”
Riley held up her arm. The wound near her elbow was already healing. “I can feel my flesh melding together. I’m not sure I will ever get used to that.”
Stern nodded. “It’s weird I know. I haven’t been a shadow warrior that long myself. Sorry we had to meet under such circumstances.” He inspected the wound. “Doesn’t look like he injected you with any venom. That was a jackal demon, but we weren’t aware they could do that tentacle thing.”
Riley allowed Stern to help her to her feet. “It’s not an experience I would care to repeat.”
They both turned as a dozen shadow warriors exited the pathways and surrounded them. These men had red eyes and were led by a tall dark-haired man with clear retribution written on his face. One moment he was in the clearing the next he was ten feet away, killing a demon. Then he disappeared again.
“Who is that?” Riley asked.
Stern kept his eyes glued on the man who moved from one demon to the next. “That’s Ferguson. He’s a reaper and only answers to Dannika. I was a military man but I’m glad I don’t have to fight him.”
Colton ran up to Riley. “Are you okay?”
Riley glanced at Stern. “Yes, he killed the octopus demon.”
Colton shook Stern’s hand. “Thanks, man.”
Stern motioned towards the fight. “Where did they go?”
“Ferguson took out six demons before Halak disappeared. They all followed him when he left,” Colton said.
Stern rolled his shoulders. “Speak of the devil.”
Ferguson approached them with another reaper at his side. He looked Riley over slowly. “They are after you.”
Riley nodded. “Halak keeps calling me priestess. I don’t know why.”
Ferguson glanced at the dead bodies littering the forest ground. “I’m guessing you are a descendant of the priestess, and with Dannika so well protected, they see an opportunity to use you.”
Riley recalled her fight with Larkel. “The demon said he would hurt me before Deruthel used me. I don’t know what that means.”
Ferguson’s jaw flinched. “I’m guessing they want your blood to open a portal. At least that’s what I hope he meant.” He turned towards his partner. “Breck, I’m going to see if I can find the demon stronghold. You stay with Riley. Ensure she has an animal.”
Riley was about to respond when Ferguson disappeared. “How the hell does he do that?”
Breck’s red eyes focused on her, sending ice slithering across her skin. “Ferguson is the oldest reaper. His skills are beyond any living shadow warrior. I must obey his command.”
Colton frowned. “Give me a moment. I need to talk to Steele.” He jogged over to the cougar clan leader, who was helping another clan member pile the dead demons.
Breck’s eyes flickered with interest as they roamed over her. “I look forward to your trial.”
Stern growled low. “You hurt her, and I’ll rip your head off. Sure, I’ll get in trouble, but Dannika will forgive me. You, however will still be dead.”
Breck snarled. “If you touch me, then I’m justified in killing you.”
Riley stepped between the men. “Stop it. What is this trial?”
Breck ran a finger along her shoulder. Her muscles tensed, more repulsed than when the demon’s tentacles had ensnared her. “Just a small fight to encourage your animal to surface.”
“Why do I need to fight you in order for my animal to emerge?” Riley asked.
