Dommiel stared at me, speechless, obviously trying to decide whether I was serious or insane. I was probably both.
“Lethe?” he asked. “Why would you need to find her?”
I heaved out a heavy breath, my fingers linked tight and squeezing. “She has Jude. And I’m going after him, and I’m bringing him back.”
Chapter Two
Dommiel tilted his head, expression still and grave. “So…the rumors are true. The almighty hunter is gone.”
“What rumors?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Demons talk.”
I frowned, hating that demons were talking about… Wait a minute. “How the hell are demons spreading rumors?” There’s no way George or any of the Dominus Daemonum would tell a demon where Jude was. Unless one of them was a traitor. Who was spreading rumors?
Ignoring my question, he turned another on me. “How did the hunter let himself get taken by Lethe? He’s too crafty for that. Was he tricked?”
Anger burned hot in my belly. Yes. He’d been tricked, but I hadn’t come here to give Dommiel a lifeline of information. He stood and rounded the desk toward the door. “Well, my sweet Vessel, it seems our meeting is over.”
I rose to my feet. “I’m not done.”
“There’s nothing you can say to persuade me to help the bane of my existence escape from hell, just so he can return and lord over my domain, then abuse me further.” He wiggled his hooked hand in the air and spun toward the door.
“Hear me out, Dommiel…please.”
My pleading tone stopped him halfway across the room. His shoulders stiffened, then he turned, his hand on his hip. “Fine. What are you prepared to offer? And it better be good.”
I reached inside my leather jacket and pulled from the inner pocket a raven’s black plume. The very one Dommiel had given me. I held it up for him to see.
“This wasn’t from your pet raven, was it? This was one of yours, whenever you transformed. Wasn’t it?”
Dommiel’s heavy gaze shifted to mine. He nodded slowly. I’d known it all along. The last time I’d needed his help, I had to coax him into giving me information. Well, coax is too kind. It was more like blackmail. He gave me information about the whereabouts of certain demon lords. In return, I assured him that Jude would protect his right to rule in New Orleans. But I knew this was different. First of all, Jude was no longer here, so I didn’t have that bargaining chip, and I also knew that Dommiel would prefer the hunter who chopped off his hand to be rotting in hell more than anywhere else. But I also had insight that Dommiel didn’t have.
He sucked his lower lip into his mouth, his teeth tapping the silver stud, making a ticking sound. Nervous habit, apparently.
He eyed the feather in my hand, a curious expression in place. “What do you plan to do with the gift I gave you? Burn it in a cauldron and put a spell on me? It doesn’t work that way.”
“I’m not a witch, Dommiel.”
“That remains to be seen,” he scoffed. “I don’t know what your plans are, but there are reasons all hosts of heaven
and
hell steer clear of Lethe. If she ensnares you, you will forget everything…everyone. You won’t even know who you are anymore, much less anything that mattered to you before.”
A lump swelled in my throat. “So I’ve been told.”
“So if Lethe took Jude, then you’ve lost him forever. Even if you found him, he won’t know who you are. He won’t care that you’ve come to save him, because there’ll be nothing to save him from. She’ll have wiped his mind clean of memories long ago.”
“Goddamn it, Dommiel! I’m not asking for your opinion on Lethe and her prisoners. I’m asking you to help me find her.”
He stepped back, watching my hand, which I’d wrapped around the hilt of my katana. My aggression amplified tenfold every time I thought of Jude being kept captive in that dark, forbidding abyss. When helpless anger overwhelmed me, my hand always went to the sword, wanting to maim and destroy, wanting someone to pay for what had been done to Jude, for what had been taken from me.
“Are you okay?” Dommiel snapped me from my reverie. His thoughtful expression looked almost like sympathy.
I straightened with my chin in the air. “I’ve been told she lurks around the deepest levels of hell, and I can’t trust anyone else to take me there. No one who actually knows how to get there.”
He laughed, propping his hand on his hip. “You trust me?”
“I’m willing to.” I held up the plume again. “I’m offering a blood vow. To seal our deal.”
A blood vow was a truce I’d learned about a month ago when we had to meet with Prince Bamal, high demon of New York, and his men. The only way a Flamma of Light and Dark could parlay without fearing that death and mayhem would break out between the parties was to agree to a truce using a blood vow. The two leaders of the gathering would seal their blood onto an object while casting a particular spell,
Sanguis Promissionem
. There was no way to betray the blood bond, even if one wanted to.
After vehement protests on George’s part and guilt-laden coercion on mine, George had instructed me how to cast the spell. He couldn’t help me get into hell and find Lethe, and he had no other plan to get me there. Eventually, he had to succumb to my strategy of bonding to Dommiel with the blood vow. There was no other way. I could sift into hell where I’d been before, the Black Forest, but I’d been told this dark woodland stretched on forever in the underworld. I could search for eternity and still never find Lethe, and so never find Jude. I needed an insider—a demon.
Dommiel shook his head slowly back and forth as he bit his lip again, the metal stud clinking against his teeth. “I can’t believe you’re serious.”
“This isn’t a temporary deal, Dommiel. I’m offering you a permanent truce. More than that. I’m offering…friendship.”
“You and me? Friends?” He snorted. “The irony is laughable.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I’m not laughing. I’m dead serious.”
“I see that. And why would I want to be friends with the Vessel of Light who proclaims to be the one who will turn the tide of the coming war against my own kind? If you haven’t noticed, I’m a demon.”
Everyone knew the Great War between heaven and hell was coming, the one to be waged on earth for dominion over this world and all its inhabitants.
“It never escaped my attention. But since you bring up the coming war, let me say this. The war won’t be decided in a day, a week, or even a month. We all know that this war will last many years, even with my power on the side of Light. And there will be many casualties. I’m willing to offer you protection. Both from Flamma of Light—hunters, sentinels and even angels—as well as the high demons on your side who will fight you for dominion over New Orleans.”
Dommiel’s lips tightened into a line. The silver stud in his bottom lip stood straight out.
“Do you know how attractive this city will become to the high demons looking for new territory when all hell breaks loose?” I asked with a laugh. “Literally?”
“So what? I’ve got plenty of men here to protect my domain.”
“If you believe that, Dommiel, then you’re a fool. Bamal will wipe your ass off the map. He’ll cut off your other hand just for fun, to teach you a lesson, and make you one of his minions. He’s always coveted New Orleans. How do I know? Because Jude told me. You won’t stand a chance with him, and you know it.”
“And you’re offering protection.”
“I’m offering more, if you’re actually listening to me. I’ll count you as one of my friends.”
“Why would you do that? I’m a demon lord. You’re a Vessel.”
“I’ll do anything to get Jude back.”
He froze at my words, at the stark vulnerability leaking from my voice. I gave him honesty in a way I thought no one ever had. My heart was breaking every second that Jude was in that pit of hell where I couldn’t reach him.
“I’d befriend a demon. I’d pledge my devotion to defending you, even against other Flamma of Light, if you would extend me the same consideration.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, measuring me. “A friendship?” He said the word as if it were foreign to him. I suppose it was.
“I wouldn’t betray you, Dommiel. Can you say the same about your demon brethren?”
He walked closer to me and took the black plume from my hand, twirling it slowly by the tip. “If we’re to do this, then I’ll need a possession of yours.”
“Yes. I know.”
I reached around the back of my neck and unclasped the chain of my St. George medal, the one my mother had given me years before she died. When I’d lost the opal necklace Jude had given me and after I’d discovered my mother had been a Vessel too, I’d put my medal back on and not taken it off since. At first, the discovery about my mother had broken my heart. But then I realized her suicide was a sacrifice for me and Dad. Like every Vessel before her who’d been targeted by demon lords and had not yet been taken as a slave, she chose the only other way out to protect her family. Death.
I held out the medal cupped in my palm. Dommiel placed the feather on his desk, then lifted the medal by the chain, letting it dangle.
“This is precious to you?” He quirked an eyebrow.
“Yes. Very.”
“If I do this, we still must keep this…friendship a secret.”
“Believe me. I won’t be bragging to all the hunters that my new bestie is the demon lord of New Orleans. They have trust issues just as much as your minions.”
His silver-studded brows bunched together in a frown. “They’re not minions. They’re my soldiers.”
“Whatever. Do you want to argue about semantics, or do you want to do this thing?”
He closed his eyes. The sensation of pins pricking under my skin intensified as he seemed to be summoning his demonic power. All Flamma gave off a specific signature, an aura I sensed by smell or touch. High demons typically had unique signatures, but Dommiel’s was just a jacked-up version of what all lower demons emitted. This confirmed for me that his power didn’t resonate on a superior level, like that of Bamal. Without my help, Dommiel would soon become slave to someone higher up the food chain.
Reacting to the demonic charge revving in the room, my underlight glowed moon bright. He’d closed his eyes for only a few seconds, but the electricity sparking in the air was palpable. When he opened them, his irises were pools of liquid red. He lifted his hand and opened his mouth, revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth, including two canines extending beyond the others. Clamping down on the fleshy part of his palm, he pierced the skin and held out his hand, now leaking black blood from two punctures. The medal was still cupped there.
“You’ll have to assist, I’m afraid.” Wagging his hook in the air, he quirked an eyebrow at me.
I took the medal and wiped it along the oozing punctures. After smearing the medal on both sides, I placed it on top of the feather on the desk. Dommiel walked around to the other side.
“Stand across from me.”
I moved closer, facing him from the opposite side.
“Place your hand on top.”
I did, covering the two objects, except for the tip of the feather sticking out. He leaned forward and covered my hand with his palm. His blood oozed a trail, slipping over my hand to the objects beneath.
“Do you know the words?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said with a tight nod, my pulse pumping faster.
“Then let’s do it,” he replied with the wickedest Cheshire cat grin—his fanged smile both menacing and playful.
We spoke the words together in Latin, the common tongue of heavenly and demonic hosts.
“
Vincia sanguine puro et vero, per dicta vel facta non nocere
…”
Bound by blood pure and true, to do no harm through words or deeds…
As the words poured from our mouths in unison, his crimson gaze burned brighter. My underlight did the same, reacting to the sealing of our blood oath.
“
Spondeo hac vita vinculo
.”
I pledge my life upon this bond.
Upon the final word, a resounding crack snapped in the air above our coupled hands. A swirl of red smoke curled up from under our palms, mine pressed into the objects, Dommiel’s pressed into the back of my hand. The tendril wove a figure eight between our wrists, skimming a cold caress along my skin. No, not a figure eight.
“Infinity,” I whispered as the mystical vapor trailed the underside of my wrist, sending a shiver through my body.
“Yes,” said Dommiel. His fangs had retracted. His eyes had faded to their normal dark hue. “It worked. My first eternal blood oath.”
He lifted his hand and opened his desk drawer, then pulled a handkerchief from inside to wipe his palm. I tucked the feather inside my jacket pocket. The objects were merely token reminders of our blood oath, the vow now sealed in our skin and flesh. The compulsion to keep one another from harm would override all else if either of us was in danger.
“Well, then. When did you want to leave? I have a few things I need to wrap up here… Well, one voluptuous thing, actually,” he said with a smirk. He scooped my chain into another drawer of his desk and locked it with a key in his pocket. “But I could meet you for this little tumble down the rabbit hole later tonight.”