whiskey witches 01 - whisky witches (19 page)

“Yes.” A smug smile slithered across his warped face. “I was put here for a reason, Detective Whiskey. I know that. I was meant to show this meager race what true freedom really is.”

“People—” She fought to breathe. Something heavy had settled on her chest. Something she couldn’t see. Guilt? Fear? The demon set on pushing her out of her body? “People aren’ ready fer tha.’”

“That’s the point. This nation—this world—is a sue-happy, blame everyone else kind of place. No one knows how to handle it, true freedom, the responsibility that comes with it. I’m here to watch you writhe with the magnitude of the knowledge buried behind that gate.” His eyes glowed.

Paige pushed as far away from him as the ropes allowed, the glow getting brighter and brighter, the flames dancing further from his eyes.

“I want to hear your screams as you go insane after getting exactly what you wanted. Father would be proud.”

She had to keep her cool. The drug. There was a drug in her system, making her see things. “Father? Sat’n?”

“God, stupid girl.” Disgust dripped from his posture, the flames dancing in his eyes. “He sent me here to make everyone pay.”

“Fer wha’?”

“Not believing in him. For not obeying the rules, for not following His teachings.”

“You bring Armageddon?” That was almost clear. Whatever she was doing to compartmentalize her mind, it was working.

“I’m here to bring about peace, to bring the human race to their knees as they bow before His grace.”

“You’re insane.”

“You’ll see.”

“If you’re the son of God, then why can’t you open the gate?” Her fingers worked the ropes, feeling a lot less like jelly and more like fingers. “Why depend on a demon? Aren’t you one of God’s chosen sons? Wouldn’t you be able to open it? Why would He send you down here to open the gate without giving you the power to do so?”

The serenity that had blanketed his face disappeared. He pushed off the wall and stormed toward her.

Pain exploded across her cheek where his hand connected with it. She blinked, moving her mouth to massage the pain away. He hadn’t held anything back in that swing. Her heart raced. She took in a few deep breaths to steady herself, but was unable to slow her heart’s pelting pace. “I guess that’s a sore subject.”

“Like you and your apparent lack of gifts,” Jones sneered. “And your entire family is rife with them, while you’re sitting in back as the outcast.”

“I don’t have that problem anymore and you know it, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

His smug smile slid back into place. “I do, don’t I? Imagine someone with a gift as powerful and rich as yours so caught up in other things you never saw any of this coming.”

“How’d you find out about me?”

“I saw you in Texas. I wanted to get closer to that case you were working, wanted to know if he was trying to raise my demon, to open my gate.” He shook his head, dismissing the subject. “He wasn’t. He was too weak. Feel okay?”

“Peachy,” she gritted out, her fingers loosening the knot. “How did you know?”

“You slipped,” he said, cockiness rolling off him. “I saw you in an alley. You conjured a demon and were talking to him. Can you imagine how wonderful you are to my cause?”

Paige lost control of her breathing, too shallow and too fast. Dizziness hit her. Her fingers shook on the knots. She couldn’t slow her heart rate. Her skin flushed with heat. The effects of the drug had been receding. Hadn’t they? “What did you give me?”

“The fancy name is Psilocybin.” He strolled over to her. “You would know it as ‘magic mushrooms.’ Malika, she’s ready for you.”

Light shined in a large square against the wall at her feet. Paige could see the shadow of a long, curvaceous woman walking down the steps, and another man who followed her. A crash sounded. Could have been a cellar door, and the room was bathed in the lone light of the naked light bulb hanging above her. Paige blinked, trying to clear her mind. The smell of lilacs assaulted her nose. When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying in a field of the fragrant purple blooms.

“Are you still with us?” Jones asked, his face blotting out the sun.

A breeze blew, fluttering against her skin. Everything was so beautiful.

He looked at something she couldn’t see. “She’s ready.”

“She’s bugged out of her fuckin’ mind,” another man said as he came into view.

Paige stared at him, transfixed. He was such a beautiful man to look at with his blonde hair cropped short and spiked on top of his head. His brilliantly blue eyes swam like twin glistening pools above her.

He shook his head in disgust. “How much di’ ye give her?”

“Not much,” Jones said, his voice very far away.

Paige returned her attention to the sum, relaxing into the soft earth beneath her with a dreamy sigh.

“Well,” said a woman with a silky smooth voice, “at least she won’t fight us.”

“Bu’ we need her competent enough to concentrate on lettin’ him in.”

“She’ll do fine,” Jones said, his voice clipped. “She was born for this moment.”

Paige giggled, enjoying the warmth of the light and sound of the voices around her. “Born for this,” she repeated, her words slurred. “Yes, I was born for this, this moment, this right now. Yes.”

“Bloody hell. Let’s just get on with it.”

“Y
OU’LL BE A
good girl, right, Paige?” Jones asked.

“I’m a good girl, I am.” Paige giggled again, her heart beating like the frantic flutterings of a trapped butterfly. “I heard that in a movie once. What movie was that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Malika said, stepping into view.

“You’re so . . . so pretty.” Paige smiled, her head rocking with the motion of the world around her. “Everything’s so pretty.”

“That’s good, dear.” Malika raised her face to the light. “Sven, it’s time to start the ceremony.”

“Is someone getting married?” Paige blinked slowly, the fingers of her right hand twitching. “I hate weddings.”

“Knife,” Malika said shortly.

Jones reached over Paige, handing Malika a curved, dangerous-looking blade.

Fear wiped the feeling of blissfulness out of Paige’s heart like a sledge-hammer. Her eyes opened wide. She attempted to back away only to find herself still strapped to the table. “What are you doing?” One moment of pure clarity overtook her mind. She remembered who she was, what she was doing strapped to a table, and what that knife meant.

It didn’t last long.

The knife drew closer. The people that had surrounded her, the flowers, the sun, everything slipped into a pit of dizzying darkness. She lifted herself onto her elbows as much as the ropes would allow, inching further from the blade.

Harsh hands grasped her shoulders, pinning her to the slab. A grotesque face emerged from the void, his eyes black, his nose slitted down the middle, his forehead red and creased. His blonde hair stood in blood-tipped spikes on top of his head. He sneered at her and said something she did not understand.

She screamed with every ounce of energy she had left, pulling against her bonds.

The others talked to her in nonsense words, her mind filled with fright. Another demon stepped out of the inky blackness, his eyes shooting red flares of light. His long, clawed hands ripped at her shirt.

She gulped air and kept screaming, looking from one demon to the next. The knife settled on her chest. The woman chanted something above her.

The second demon pinned her down.

Unable to move, unable to breathe. The heat of her tears slid down her face and into her ear, amplifying the sounds around her. Her screams turned to whimpers as she lost the ability to gain enough air. The dark world spun. Everything crowded around her. The blonde demon’s hand bit into the flesh of her arm.

The world stilled. Time stopped. The knife quivered where it lay against her breast. Paige stared into the Malika’s brown eyes, and found peace in the maelstrom.

Malika’s face twisted into a cruel sneer. The vision shattered with an explosion of dust and the tinkling of glass. Paige pushed off of the slab beneath her, driving the knife into her skin. The pain sent her skidding out of control, back into the hellish nightmare around her. Hot blood slipped from her frozen body.

She shivered on the slab, helpless, unable to move, unable to stop what these monsters were doing. Terrified. She couldn’t figure a way out. She couldn’t think of a way to stop them.

A light grew from the size of a firefly to a blazing door. A hesitant calm blanketed her as she watched it approach. A face unraveled from the light’s grace, a chiseled and handsome face accentuated with an intense network of tattoos.

The pain disappeared, pushed into the dark recesses of the nightmare. Malika’s voice seemed far away. Paige floated up, past the claws tearing at her, and the rough ropes that had held her pinned.

His body drifted towards hers, draped in an exquisite robe of burgundy velvet. The intricate embroidery of blues, greens and gold along the edge drew her attention to the robe opening, to the ripped expanse of muscled manliness. Tight black leather pants were buttoned securely at his waist, a trail of soft black hair stopped like a rivulet of water pooling at the base of a mountain.

“Paige,” he crooned, his accent giving her name an exotic ring. “Come to me.”

“I know you,” she whispered. “You’re dangerous. A ghost. A demon ghost.”

“You know me.” The deep rumble of his voice caused her to shiver. “As I know you. Now, come to me.”

She closed her eyes. Fire licked at her in a way it hadn’t in three long years. She felt alive, empowered. Impassioned. “No.”

His strong arms wrapped around her, holding her close, one arm draped around her waist, the other holding her head cushioned against his chest. He smelled of wood and something else she could not place.

Safe. She belonged here as she belonged nowhere else. Accepted, not feared, not manipulated.

“You must trust me now.” He pulled her head back to capture her gaze.

She couldn’t tear her gaze away from his, trapped and helpless in the depths of his soul.

“Help me, Paige. Help your world. Be my instrument so I can stop the madness, the killings. Your pain.”

“You can stop them?”

“I can,” he said gently. “But not without your help. Will you help me?”

No, came a voice from somewhere inside her mind.

She fell into his bottomless black eyes. “Yes,” she breathed softly. Every cell in her body cried out with her. “I will help you.”

He smiled at her and cupped the back of her head, drawing his lips towards hers. “Thank you, Paige.”

She watched his lips tread dangerously, wonderfully near. She needed to feel what it meant to be a woman again, to feel alive and emboldened.

His breath feathered across her lips. “Thank you.”

She took the breath he offered, closing her eyes as her body answered him.

His lips brushed her cheek. “Paige.” He groaned, his tongue encircling her earlobe in wet heat. “How long have I waited for you? How long have I yearned to feel this?”

She clung to him. Her head fell back into the comforting support of his hands. She was his, powerless to stop him. She had no wish to. His lips trailed down her neck, leaving a path of burning passion in its wake as she moaned, wordlessly begging for more.

He pulled back.

She opened her eyes, looking at him in askance.

A soft smile softened his features. “You are sure you are ready to help me?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Open to me,” he commanded. “Do not fight me. Let me in.”

She swallowed, watching his frustrating descent. She ran her hand over his bald head. “I’m not fighting you.” She claimed his lips with the power of her passion.

His lips were firm, at once gentle yet demanding. She closed her eyes, pushing herself closer to him, needing more of him than one small kiss. She needed the feel of his hands on her body, to feel his skin against hers. She needed him.

He teased her mouth open. His tongue invaded, sending streams of energy coursing through her. She devoured him, taking as much as he would give her. She moaned, exhilarating in the feel of his hard, muscled body pressed tight to her own.

He wrapped his arms around her. Squeezing her tightly, he deepened the kiss still further.

Then something changed.

He wasn’t just pressing his body against hers. His body was entering hers. His mouth morphed into her own. His arms blended into her back. His torso sank into her chest.

She tried to pull back, to disengage. They had become one like a half-formed Siamese twin. She tried to raise her hands, but her arms clung to his neck, refusing to budge. She blinked, seeing only his eyes, those huge, deep pits of darkness. What was happening?

Do not fight me, love, she heard his voice say inside her mind. You are going to be my vessel. You are going to help me fight these demons.

Demons. Her heart raced as she suddenly recalled the full gravity of her situation.

Lucius.

This was Lucius, a demon trying to possess her body to open the Gate to Hell. Rising fury gave her the strength to push back. She gained the freedom of one hand.

You will be my vessel.