“This is where I belong.” He tilted his head to see what the demon bounty hunter had to say about this.
“No, this ends now,” Bad Mother said.
Everybody seemed to wait, but he was done talking.
"That all?" I asked him.
"Yeah." He shrugged. “We don’t have a personal history or anything. He’s causing problems and being a dick, I’m here to stop him. That’s it.” Bad Mother tilted his head in consideration. “Targeting a kid, though? We don’t even do that in Hell, so I will take some joy in beating your ass senseless.”
“What about you, O?” I wondered. The other incubus went totally immobile since Lex appeared. So far, their family reunion lacked the violence and shouting you’d expect under these circumstances. “Anything to say?”
“Yes.” Orion moved to the edge of the broken circle, though neither man made a move to cross or reach for the other. “Who the hell are you?”
Huh? What the hell was going on? Wild cackles of laughter started up from Lex.
“Silly little Orion, so ignorant about the other world that helped create you.” Lex seemed all too happy to fill him in. “You were busy shying away from your new power and locking it up whileIwas captivated when your brother found me.”
“Taryn recruited new allies,” Orion realized. Whoa, we were after his brother, but this was someone else? I recognized him, but he was new to Orion.
“Good thing he did, since you were planning on betraying your own flesh and blood. But no, I’m not an ally. I was his eagerstudent,that’s the keyword. Your nicknames weren’t actually names like your brother initially thought. They were titles. So, he gave me his old title, Lex, the student, and became the Mar, the master.” He sneered at Orion. “But you banished him before we finished my training.”
Huh. People with magic didn’t send unprotected pleas out into the universe every day. This dick heard my call and formed a connection to me so he’d be able to find me and drain my power when he learned his new tricks, but his teacher was banished before the lessons were complete. Which meant that Orion didn’t get Tommy killed like he thought because this guy did that, not his brother. Him banishing Taryn kept this Lex from finishing his training sooner and coming back for me, he wasn’t able to do that until now.
“It took years,” Lex said. “But I found a way back to my master. Compared to my journey, ha, literally to Hell and back again, him teaching me the rest was the easiest part.”
"We detected that someone came over to Earth,” Bad Mother said. “The energy matched Taryn Lennox."
"Yes. You assumed it was him, naturally. I shaped myself in my master’s image. Looking at my energy, most assumed it was him, that’s how we hid my presence. Few knew I was ever there."
Orion staggered as he put the pieces together. "So, my brother… he didn’t escape Hell."
“He did not,” Lex confirmed, then smiled. “Not yet. But hewill.”
Orion attempted to banish his brother to prevent him from coming back and snacking on everyone who didn’t know what his incubus powers were really capable of. When the killings started again and Orion recognized the familiar energy, he assumed the banishment failed and that his brother found his way home. But he hadn’t. The banishment held. It was keeping Taryn from returning and wreaking havoc on Earth. Now the devoted student was here to undo it and free his master so he could return and they could go wild together.
Those in Hell relied on magic more and the supernatural wasn’t hidden there. Finding an easy mark to drain dry was probably more difficult there. Whatever these two learned as common knowledge on Hell were secrets to us here, the people on Earth. If Orion’s brother came back, he and Lex would have the perfect hunting ground. We weren’t prepared for them and their updated gifts.
"Get back!" Bad Mother raised his knives and the lights in the club flickered.
Wind rushed by me as one knife soared by. Nothing remained in the circle when the lights flashed back on. The knife returned to sender and waited.
“Dammit, spread out and find him.” Bad Mother began searching, stalking across the club in quick strides with his weapons following in the air behind him. “Where the hell is he?”
“Nearby.”
The voice sounded like it came from behind me. I whirled around. Nobody there.
"Look out!"
As I turned back around, something large barreled right for me. Orion pushed me out of the way. I fell to the ground, safe from the club table that nearly collided with me. It hit Orion instead and he landed near the broken white lines of the summoning circle.
I saw the air there ripple too late.
“Watch out!”
I rushed over and didn’t make it fast enough.
The lines from the broken circle glowed and reformed, coming together around the incubus. The circle separated me and Orion. I tried to cross, but a barrier kept me at bay.
