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“Harold did more than try something. Morio had gone over to examine a painting on the wall, and Harold plopped his sorry ass down beside me, jammed his hand up my dress, and tried to slip a finger in my pussy. I knew he was a creep, but that little maneuver still took me by surprise.”
“What? With Morio right there? Is he a total idiot?”
Camille rolled her eyes. “Harold Young not only reeks of Demonkin, but he’s so freaking arrogant that he doesn’t have any clue that people might try to stop him. I smacked him a good one, and that’s when Morio landed on top of him. I thought you were going to kill him,” she said softly, aiming her comment at Morio.
Morio shrugged. “If Menolly hadn’t come in at that moment, I would have. He’s worse than useless. The world is better off without his kind.” He turned toward her, his gaze steadfast and cool. “You belong to Smoky, Trillian, and me. You are not a plaything to be manhandled, and no one will ever take advantage of you while I’m around.”
I sat back, chewing on this new information. Harold had no sense of boundaries. Harold had attacked Camille, and if Morio hadn’t been there, he and his buddy Larry would have tried to rape her. Not that they’d get all that far—not unless they had a weapon. But they would have tried.
Harold had stalked Sabele, and I now believed in my heart that she was dead. Larry and his buddy Duane had spiked some girl’s drink with Z-fen, one of the most addictive date-rape drugs around, and then had themselves a messy little gang bang. The whole group seemed to be infested with a taint that was connected with some form of Demonkin energy. So what else had they done? And how far were they capable of taking their attacks?
As we pushed through the doors to the meeting room at the FH-CSI building, I wondered how many times we’d come here, how many times we’d met to strategize. How long could we hold out against the approaching tide of demons?
We had no hope to destroy Shadow Wing on his home turf—not now, maybe not ever. So we’d put up the fight here. We’d collect the spirit seals and hide them. We’d fight the demons. We’d guard the portals. And we’d never stop, because until Shadow Wing was dead, he’d never give up. Even when we had all of the spirit seals—the ones he hadn’t managed to capture, that is—he’d be after us and after them. And if he ever discovered where they were, then Elqaneve and Queen Asteria would be in danger.
Chase and Yugi were sitting at the table. Sharah was standing behind them. Roz and Vanzir were waiting for us, and Smoky appeared off the Ionyc Sea as we swept in. We slipped into our chairs.
“Delilah not coming?” Chase asked.
“Think,” I said softly. “You really want her around here, where that mother of a demon is hanging out?”
He blinked. Once. Then he softly said, “I hear you. Not a problem. We’ve had two more attacks tonight while we were waiting for you. Guys brought them in. The victims are still alive and are in the medical unit, but unless we do something, this thing’s going to just blow wide open. The Fae community will be a group of sitting ducks.”
“Yeah, well hold onto your dick. We’ve got bigger problems than that,” Vanzir said. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his eyes narrowed. He always looked right on the edge of taking a good swipe at somebody.
Even with Roz’s warning, I realized that I actually found him attractive. We both lived on the edge. We were both vampires—I via the blood, Vanzir via soul energy. Roz I could groove with. Vanzir . . . I had a feeling we would understand one another on a gut level. No prettiness, no niceties . . . just sheer understanding.
“Tell everybody what you told Iris.” I slid into the seat between him and Roz. Roz flashed me an impassive look, but he pursed his lips ever so slightly.
Vanzir glanced at me, then let out a long sigh. “Here’s the deal. Shadow Wing’s assigned somebody new to take Karvanak’s place. The news is spreading like wildfire through the underground.”
“Three questions: Who and what is he? Is he here yet? And did he make it here the same way you crossed over to Earthside?” I asked. When we’d first performed the Ritual of Subjugation, Vanzir had explained how he managed to slip Earthside unnoticed. He arrived via the astral plane. Few demons had the ability to shift through the astral like he did, other than incubi, succubi, and others who worked out on the astral.
“First, it’s not a he. It’s a she. And yes, she’s here. Stacia. She’s a lamia in her natural form, and she’s a general, like Karvanak. We don’t know much beyond that, but given her nature, she’s bound to be nasty.”
“Great, a Greek demon this time,” I muttered.
“Greek, Persian, who gives a fuck?” Chase tossed his pen on the table, along with his notebook. “How’d she get here?”
Vanzir squinted. “Could be someone over Earthside used a Demon Gate spell to let her in. Takes a damned high-powered wizard to gate in a demon that powerful.”
“Since Demon Gates allow an FBH to control the demon—laughably, considering how little it takes to break that control—could it be another demon who did it?” I asked.
“A demon who can use a Demon Gate?” Morio straightened his shoulders. “Not good. But I didn’t think demons could wield control over their own kind via magic.”
“The majority—no,” Vanzir said. “But there are a few, especially half-demon-half-human, who can manage that kind of magic without frying themselves.”
“Shit. Then we’re possibly facing a half-demon wizard on Shadow Wing’s side? Just dandy,” I said.
“Don’t assume,” Smoky said. “We need facts, not assumptions, or we could let ourselves in for trouble.”
“What does this Stacia look like? In both her natural form and human?” Chase shifted in his chair, his right hand twitching.
Karvanak had captured him and tortured him, trying to blackmail us into giving him the fourth spirit seal. I still wasn’t clear on what Chase had been through. He was reticent about discussing the subject, which I understood all too well. It had taken me twelve years to talk about what Dredge did to me the night he killed and turned me.
But whatever had gone on between the demon and the detective, it left Chase short most of his pinky finger, as well as making him a lot edgier. When it came to going up against the bad guys, Chase had always been a by-the-book guy. Now he was harder, more willing to go to the extreme.
Vanzir arched his eyebrows. “She’s not a Penthouse Pet, that’s for sure. At least not in her natural form. Lamias generally look like a giant anaconda with the torso and head of a human female. In human form, they’re like sirens and can bewitch men with their song. So we know that much, but as to Stacia—the only other thing I found out is that, down in the Sub Realms, they call her the Bone Crusher.”
