Pale Demon (47 page)

“Keep her alive,” I mouthed, and he nodded, even as Ivy read my lips and grimaced.

The clink of sliding rubble jerked my attention back to the beach where a black, oily smoke drifted from the person-size crater.

“I can hear you…Rachel,” Ku’Sox mocked, his voice coming closer as I edged back to my circle. “I hear you breathing.”

I couldn’t help it, and I held my breath, sitting with my back against the building. My heart pounded, and sweat made clean tracks in the dust on my arms. I listened for the sound of church bells, hearing nothing.
Come on, Vivian…

“How sweet of you to have come back, thinking you could best me,” he said, a rock clinking closer. “It took six demons to shove me under that rock they built the arch over, and I killed one of them in the process. Almost got Newt, too. Sweet little Newt, more trusting than you, even after I had convinced her to kill all her sisters. You should have waited until dark. Al can’t help you, but at least you wouldn’t die alone.”

“I don’t need Al’s help to squish a bug like you,” I said, teeth gritted as I attempted to figure out where he was by his voice. Trying to be quiet, I pulled away from the building, an odd sort of pain drifting through me as the curse made for him felt him and started to align itself. Pieces of me that didn’t fit, chunks of Ku’Sox’s curse. Slowly I gathered them together in my chi, praying for bells. Just one. But there was nothing.

“Don’t need Al’s help?” he said, and with a sideways step, the demon appeared from behind the side of the old bathroom, cocky and sure of himself with the sun in his hair and his lips curved up in amusement. Crap, he was almost on top of me. “You’re stupider than I thought,” he finished, smiling.

Pain exploded from nowhere inside. My concentration shattered, and the bits of the curse I’d pulled from myself sprang back into place with a twang. My knees gave way and I hit the pavement beside the building, burning in agony. It felt like my lungs were exploding. Teeth clenched, I lifted my head to find Ku’Sox standing beside the building, a bundle of cloth in his hands. Great, he had a focusing object. He didn’t have to throw charms at me. He could just wish on a star.

“Oh God,” I moaned, feeling the cramping slither across my heart and wend its way to my gut. Panting, I tried to inch my fingers to my scribed circle, but I couldn’t focus long enough to even find a ley line. I took a gasping breath as I realized that there was a pair of black slippers in front of me. He’d moved, and I hadn’t even noticed. But in all fairness, it was hard to see around the pain.

“That was so easy, it wasn’t any fun at all.” Ku’Sox pouted.

I looked up, squinting at the doll with red hair and leather boots, and I got a clean, albeit ragged, breath as his fingers loosened on it. “Wanna play dolls?” he asked me, and pursed his lips, exhaling.

I flung myself backward, landing against the building. My lungs were suddenly overflowing with air, feeling as if they were going to burst even as the hot, moist breath lacking any oxygen at all filled them. I was suffocating, though I heaved for air. One hand on my throat, the other on the ground scrabbling for the circle, I saw a movement behind Ku’Sox, a soft ghost of gray. I tried not to look, but Ku’Sox noticed my eyes, turning in time to see Pierce winding up with a black ball of hurt dripping in his hand.

“Compages!”
Ku’Sox shouted, and a shimmering protection bubble flashed into existence, breathtaking in its utter sordidness. This was true smut, making the black shimmer on my own aura look like a drop of oil in the ocean. Pierce’s curse hit Ku’Sox’s protective bubble and bounced right back at Pierce.

It was a beautiful bit of defensive magic, but it cost Ku’Sox his concentration. The pain in my chest vanished. My head came up, and I took in a huge gulp of air. In an instant, I read the strength Pierce’s thrown curse had absorbed from Ku’Sox’s bubble, knowing that the ill-made, green-tinted circle Pierce had taken refuge in wasn’t going to hold against it. The curse had Pierce’s aura and would go right through.

My eyes narrowed, and still on the ground, I whispered,
“Rhombus.”

The rusty, broken West Coast ley line limped into me, and I wrestled with it, trying to get some semblance of order, but it was thin, ragged. My circle was huge, me at its center, as all theoretical, undrawn circles are, the edge of it just shy of Pierce and Ivy. They were outside my circle, but Ku’Sox and the deadly curse he had bounced back at Pierce were inside.

I grunted when Pierce’s curse hit the inside of my bubble, absorbing most of the energy from his magic as it tore through my circle and hit Pierce square on, having passed right through his bubble as if it didn’t exist.

“No!” I cried out as the curse struck Pierce and he fell, mouth open in a silent scream. “God, no!” I called again, struggling to get up as the curse spread to Ivy, and they both collapsed under a green-tinted wash of ever-after.

Mouth agape, Ku’Sox spun to me, his shock clear. “You…,” he managed, and then I saw Pierce move, his chest rising and falling as he lay stunned by his own magic. They were alive. They were out cold, but they were alive. Thank you, God, they were alive!

“Clever,” Ku’Sox managed, clearly peeved that I’d managed to save them, and I kicked him with all the force I had.

Yelping, he fell back. I sprang at him, my hands reaching for that doll, but he vanished an instant before I touched him, and I fell right through the space he’d been in, landing hard against the sidewalk, my curled-in fingers taking much of the impact.

“Ow,” I huffed, then rolled, instinct and too many fights telling me to move.

I was too slow to escape everything, and the toe of Ku’Sox’s boot helped me over, bruising my ribs instead of breaking them.

“Mother of a dog whore!” Ku’Sox shouted, following me with his foot swinging, and I rolled the other way, right into him.

He wasn’t expecting that, and he fell forward over me, hitting the sidewalk with an
oof
of surprise. Immediately I reversed my motion, almost crawling across him as he lay facedown on the sidewalk. Inside, a part of me was shrieking with laughter. Here we were, two demons in the sun, down to kicking and punching.

“You’re scum, Ku’Sox.” I breathed heavily, straddling his back as I found his arm and yanked it backward, almost breaking it as I smashed his face back down onto the sidewalk, but he only started to laugh, his cheek against the cement and unable to see me. He was starting to piss me off, and I gave a little pull, cutting his mirth short.

“Rachel, what do you hope to accomplish?” he said, clearly feeling the pain of the position but not taking it seriously. “I can jump to a line from under you. Burn every last thought from you as I lie here.”

Maybe, but he hadn’t. Grimacing, I shoved his wrist into his back and lifted his bent elbow, making him yelp. “Then why haven’t you?” I asked. I let up, but just a little. The hills of San Francisco were silent, not a single bell ringing.
Please, Vivian…

“Because this is sort of nice,” he said, and I pulled up on his elbow, making him laugh more even though his face started to show the strain. He was getting a kick out of this, the bastard.

“Nice?” I leaned closer to his ear. “You should see me when I get warmed up. I’m like a hemi, baby. Run all night.”

“Maybe we got off on the wrong foot,” Ku’Sox said, and I eased up a smidge. “I heard you almost killed Al. You made a damn fine construct for the collective. I walked it while you languished in Al’s tiny kitchen, trying to survive its creation. I can admit I was wrong. You’re a demon. A damn fine one. I don’t care if you came from witches and the genetic engineering of elves. I myself am born from tinkering, and I’ll admit that my abhorrence might have originated from my own shame.”

“I’m not ashamed of where I come from,” I snarled softly, my worry growing as I glanced at Pierce and Ivy, still not moving.

“I’m even impressed with how you tried to slide that curse into me,” he added, eyes roving to find mine. “You forgot to include the collective, though. Good luck finding one. The demons won’t help you. They want me even less than your pitiful coven does. No, you’re down to one choice, and that’s me.”

Vivian would find me a collective. She would. I had to believe it. “You?” I said as I leaned in, my shadow covering his eyes, and he winced, his gaze finding mine at last. A grimace grew on my face as I pinned him to the cement. Ku’Sox was an ass; he was getting turned on by this. I could tell.

“I told you I liked red hair, yes?” he murmured, sand stuck to his face. “I could get to like you,” he said, and I forced myself to smile back at him. “We could enjoy each other, enjoy the best of the ever-after and this world both. Just you. And me. The hell with the rest of them.”

Keep him talking,
I thought, feeling a weird sort of energy starting to slip from him to me. Damn it, was he trying to do a power pull? But the memory of him eating a pixy, the warrior struggling to pierce Ku’Sox’s throat even as he gulped him down intruded.
As if.
“What about Ivy?” I asked breathlessly, glancing at her.

“Bring her along,” he said. “Variety is the spice of life.”

“I meant,” I said in his ear, “you hurt her.”

“I didn’t do anything permanent.” His voice betrayed his bewilderment. “You want to know the way to keep her soul after she dies, right?”

Shock quivered through me. “You know how to do that?” I warbled.

I couldn’t help it. My grip eased, and Ku’Sox drew his arm to his chest, laughing low as he shifted out from under me, sitting up and turning to face me. Streaks of dirt had turned his black shirt gray, and he felt his shoulder before wiping the sand from his face and arranging his hair.

“That’s better,” he said, gaze taking in my rumpled body, eyes cataloging the curves and lines of my face all the way down to my borrowed shoes. “This is what you really look like?”

“You can return Ivy’s soul to her when she dies?” I prompted breathlessly.

“No. I just wanted you to let go.”

My jaw dropped. “You son of a bitch.” I swung at him, my wrist bursting into pain when he caught my hand, inches from his face.

“Find something new to call me,” he said, yanking me to him. My hand curled into a claw, and I panted through the pain. I was kneeling before him, and he pulled me closer, almost into his lap.

“I’ve been alone a long time,” he said, his hand gripping my wrist painfully, promising me even more hurt if I struggled. “Lots of time to think of how to pleasure myself with a woman who wouldn’t die at her first orgasm. Lots of time to imagine what it could be.” His groping hand reached, taking the chalk from my pocket and throwing it away. “Lots of time to lose what few inhibitions I might have had.”

My splat gun was next, and I struggled as he found it, slipped in the small of my back, and threw it into the nearby ocean.

“I can shift the smallest mote of energy,” he said, a new depravity in his eyes, as if he wanted to strip me of everything else. “Make it dance in you.”

“Promises, promises,” I said, listening for the bells, but still there was nothing but the
shush
of the water and the crying of the gulls. It wasn’t going to happen. They were too afraid, and my hope began slipping from me, leaving the sour taste of burnt amber on my soul.

“I don’t want to fight you,” he said, sounding reasonable as the wind moved the ends of his hair. “I’m not even asking you to submit. Simply…let me be.”

Let me be.
It was what I wanted. “Let you be?” I said, my gaze darting to the chalk, well out of reach.

He nodded, and my hand hurt when he let go and the blood flowed again. “You aren’t wanted here,” he said, his eyes lifting from me as I leaned back, the deathly silent hills watching us. “They hate you. Why are you trying to save them? This is your playground. Play! Play with me.”

He was smiling, looking as beautiful as only a satisfied demon could, knowing the world was his and nothing could stop him. I felt my wrist, looking for a way out and not finding one. There was no collective to help me move the curse, no white knight in the guise of a city-wide outflowing of goodwill. They had turned their backs on me, not trusting me. The hurt part of me said screw them, but I’d been afraid before and I couldn’t fault them. They were scared, and no one should die because they were scared. Not when someone else had the courage to say no.

“This isn’t my playground, this is my home,” I said, seeing my reflection in his eyes, my hair mussed, face flushed, and a heady hatred in my eyes. “And if you don’t leave, I’m going to kick your ass out.”

His head tilted and he laughed, beautiful in the sun with the ocean behind him. “Oh, Rachel, we could have had so much fun,” he said when he looked back at me, the last remnants of his mirth still lingering at the corners of his mouth. “I wish I could make you last, but truly, you are too close to being a threat to survive. Right now you are alone, with absolutely no curses, vulnerable. But someday you’ll be better than me. And I don’t trust you.”

Vulnerable. That’s what Al had said. But I hadn’t listened, and now all I had was what God had given me and what Trent’s father had enabled me to survive. And as I squinted at Ku’Sox, hating that he thought he had power over me simply because he was stronger, my will solidified. I didn’t need the damn collective. I was a coven-damned demoness.

Unaware of my thoughts, Ku’Sox reached out and snatched my wrist again, delighted as I struggled when he pulled me closer. “What, no long monologues?” I taunted him, and his expression became more domineering yet.

“No,” he said, rising to keep the weight advantage. “When I see a snake, I cut off its head and have done with it. After I suck out its poison for myself, of course.”

I twisted, trying to avoid his reaching hand, and he splayed his fingers. They were coated in his black aura, sparkling at the edges, and I did
not
want that touching me. But with a grunt of satisfaction, he thrust his hand against my face and shoved his will into mine.