The Death Skull: Relic Defender, Book 2 (17 page)

On the other hand, he was a bastard of the highest order and didn’t care one bit for humans or his brethren.

She decided on a response. “Fuck you, Pammon.”

He laughed, a rumble of sound deep in his chest. “You always have big mouth. I take great desire in closing it forever.”

As the last syllable rumbled from his chest, he leaped at her, all four arms extended with fingernails stabbing for her breasts.

She dodged his initial strike—even as she felt the tear of claws in her shoulder and swung sideways at the waist—punching at the bastard’s groin area. Not a disabling blow but it was a hard-enough hit that he staggered back a bit. Enough so she could set her stance and distribute her body weight for defense.

He came at her again, this time slashing with one arm while he swung in low with the other. She blocked the upper movement and jumped back, then kicked out, smashing her right leg into his knees. A bellow ripped forth and Pammon’s eyes flashed bright red. Thick lips pulled back, revealing the long canines surrounded by jagged teeth made for ripping and tearing.

“What’s the matter, Pammon? Not used to fighting someone who can fight back?”

An oily black cloud curled upward and came to rest in each of his hands. When the cloud solidified, he clutched a sword—metal dull but appearing sharp—in each of his four fists.

Crap
.

Behind her, Mari heard Jackson swear.

“Last chance, human,” she tossed over her shoulder at him. “This is going to get messy.”

“Not a chance. I’m staying here.”

“Suit yourself.”

Then she didn’t have time to worry about Jackson. With a flurry of spinning and slashing swords, Pammon dove at her. She had barely enough time to call her own sword before he was on her. Brute force pushed against her defenses. Occasionally, she caught a flash of Jackson’s sword coming at Pammon from the side, but all that seemed to do was piss off the demon.

When Pammon’s retaliation against Jackson’s cuts tore open a long slash in Jackson’s leg, Mari’s eyes narrowed. Fuck this. They didn’t have time for this dance.

Then she saw her opening. Ducking under two wild strikes that would have separated her head from her neck, Mari front-kicked a punishing blow against Pammon’s stomach. Without pausing, she ducked again and this time drove her sword under his, right up the center of his chest and out the other side. He gasped, choked and dark blood flowed out of his mouth. The red in his eyes dimmed and he stared at her in disbelief.

“You chose the wrong side, Pammon,” she murmured and pushed the sword in deeper until all that stuck out was the hilt.

With a death rattle filling his chest and expanding through the hole, Pammon slumped forward. The edges of his body shattered, rolling inward until there was nothing left of the demon except a sticky stain on the carpet. She stared at the area for a minute. While she’d never liked Pammon, she’d once called him brother.

Stepping back, she looked at Jackson. He glanced from her to the stain, then back to her again. The human’s chest rose and fell with his rapid breathing. Her sword hung down, the tip brushing the carpet. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a thick, dark substance, more black than red—Pammon’s bodily fluids—slide down the blade’s smooth edge and drip onto the carpet, mixing with human blood.

“What the hell were those two? I get the female was a succubus, but the other?”

She sighed and focused on Jackson. She didn’t really want to have this conversation with him. Humans would never understand the mixed-up connections among angels and demons.

“The best way to describe them is family,” she finally said and cleaned her own blade on the couch cushions before continuing, “in the loosest manner.”

“She’s called you cousin several times.”

Mari nodded. “Yes, that is as good a term as any.”

“You have no problems killing your cousins?”

The distaste in his voice was as clear as the crystal that made up the skull.

“No.” Her brow lifted. “What would you have me do? If I do not kill them, they will kill me. I’ve grown rather fond of being alive.”

He shook his head. “Every time I begin to think of you as human, I’m reminded you are not.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Good. It is much safer if you remember what we are capable of.”

He met her intense gaze with one of his own. Was he remembering their kiss? She was, but didn’t want to. Thinking of her as human was dangerous for him in a lot of ways.

Jackson looked away first, grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and cleaned his sword with it before sheathing the blade. “What about the woman? She’s a succubus?”

“Yes.”

“I thought they only came out during the night. Visiting a human when sleeping. Screwing them until they die happy.”

“The stories you humans tell are only partly true.”

His lips twisted. “Which part?”

“Succubi and incubi, their male counterparts, do visit mortals during sleep and give them intensely erotic dreams, but they are not the beautiful men and women your artists like to portray. The reality is far different.”

“Tell me.”

“Jackson, we don’t have time for this. Pammon is gone, but he will be back. I can only send him back to Hell. He will recover and return. Especially if we stay here. And he won’t come alone.”

“Humor me, Mari. I need to know what I’m up against, and I’m getting stinkin’ sick and tired of being that thing’s lovesick puppet.”

She sighed again.

“You saw the real form of a succubus. An incubus is similar but male. They take on the appearance of attractive humans in order to seduce them. Not to give you pleasurable dreams and certainly not, as has been theorized by humans, to milk semen from human males to place in human females to make cambions, half-human children of succubi and incubi. No, the succubi and incubi are quite capable of making children on their own.”

“Then why do they bother?”

“They feed on the emotions resulting from sexual intercourse.” She gestured to the dry husk and pile of ash. “This is what they do. Drain the human and leave behind what you see here. You are food. That’s all.”

“How do you kill one?”

“As you might have noticed, succubi are vain and the only thing they love more than themselves is a reflection of themselves.”

“A mirror?”

She nodded. “If the demon sees its own reflection in a mirror, it will become momentarily trapped within the glass. As soon as the demon is trapped, the mirror is dropped. The fall symbolizes the fall of angels from Heaven. The mirror will shatter, and the demon will die.”

“Sounds like the plot of a bad movie,” he muttered.

She couldn’t argue with his statement. Sometimes the tales and legends around her seemed too incredible to be true. Even for one who didn’t know anything else.

His turn to sigh. “So, what we have here is two dead people, no skull and no idea where it is or who has it.”

“That is our current situation.”

Muttering under his breath, Jackson kicked an overturned end table hard enough to send it several feet across the room until it crashed into the opposite wall. Wood that hadn’t already shattered from the fight splintered into tiny pieces.

At a gasp, Mari had her sword out and pivoted toward the direction of the sound. She swung. Jackson grabbed her wrist. “Mari, wait!”

She shot him a threatening look without taking her attention from the source of the gasp. Huddled into a fetal position behind the settee was a small figure. A miniature human, not much bigger than Rocky. The human lifted its head. Wide blue eyes swallowed a round face topped by curly brown hair. A female.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered.

Jackson let go of Mari’s wrist and went over to the female. He crouched beside her. She flinched, her small form quivering.

“Easy now, we aren’t going to hurt you,” he said, his voice pitched soft and soothing. Mari had heard him talk that way to a horse, and then to a dying woman. Then, as now, the rich tones struck a chord within her. “Who are you?”

“I’m Luna.”

“You live here, Luna?”

She nodded. “I work for General Katungi.” Her gaze slid past Jackson and went to the pile of ash on the floor. “I guess this means I used to work for him.”

“Jackson, we don’t have time for this.” Mari shifted from side to side.

“She might be able to help us. Might know something about the skull.”

“She’s a child. What can she know?”

“Not a child, Mari. We call them little people.”

Luna lifted her chin. “I prefer to be called a person, without any designation.”

Jackson chuckled and tipped his head. “Yes, ma’am. Please accept my apologies.” He rose and held out a hand.

Luna stared at it for a moment, looked back to the remains of her former employer and at Jackson. She unclasped her arms from around her knees and took his hand. Her tanned one looked tiny in his grasp.

He gently pulled her to her feet. “My name’s Jackson.” He jerked a thumb in Mari’s direction. “This is Marisol. We’re looking for something very important.”

Luna nodded. “I know. You’re searching for a crystal skull.”

Jackson’s eyebrows shot up. Mari froze in the middle of putting away her sword and stared at Luna. The little person lifted her chin and met her gaze straight on.

“What do you know about the crystal skull?” Mari frowned.

Luna shrugged. “Not much about what it does. Just stories.” She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I listened when I could. I wanted to learn more about the skull.” She met Mari’s scrutiny again. “I’ve seen it do…things.”

“What kind of things?” Jackson asked.

Mari wondered too, but based on what Michael had said, she had a suspicion she knew exactly what “things” Luna had seen.

“Bad things. Men dying.” The woman shuddered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Where is the skull now? Is it here?”

“It’s gone. Been gone for a couple of weeks now. Things have been getting worse around here. People disappearing. More attacks against the compound.”

Luna lowered her voice. Both Jackson and Mari had to lean forward a bit and strain to listen. “I think that, somehow, the skull has protected Katungi, and when the skull was gone, bad things began to happen to him.”

Mari straightened. The skull protected him? Was that why Beliel wanted it? For its powers to kill others but also because it protected its owner? Then why would the human have allowed the skull to be taken?

“Do you know what happened to the skull?” Jackson asked.

Luna nodded but she didn’t say anything more. Her gaze went between Jackson and Mari, her expression searching. There was something old behind her eyes. Something that made Mari think Luna knew more and was more than she appeared. There was nothing otherworldly about her, just that ancient darkness behind the blue.

“Why do you want the skull?” Luna countered instead of answering their question.

Jackson frowned then he recovered. “We want to protect it. Keep it in a safe place.”

The little woman’s head bobbed. “There’s no safe place to keep such an evil thing.”

His eyes darted to Mari’s and his brow lifted. She clearly read his “what the hell” expression.

She faced Luna and bent over until her face was about five inches from the other woman’s. “Where we put it and what we do with it is of no concern to you. Tell us where the skull is and you won’t get hurt.”

At Jackson’s muttering behind her—he disapproved of her tactics—Mari leaned back a little but kept her glare intact and focused on the woman who didn’t drop her gaze. Mari considered letting her glamour fade and show her red eyes and sharp canines. However, she suspected the sight of her real form would not frighten the scrappy human female who’d, rather quickly, dropped her terror.

“Ma’am,” Jackson began before Mari could say anything else. Or do something like rip the woman’s head off. “If you don’t mind, we really need to know if you know anything about the skull and where it might be. A lot of lives depend on us finding it before the ones who were here before us do.” He kept half his attention on the annoyed fallen angel who had risen to her full height and moved away, but turned his most charming smile on Luna. “Anything you can tell us would be appreciated.”

Luna swung her head around and looked at him. “It was taken. About two months ago, by some man who said he came to evaluate it for scientific studies. He spent a few days here and when he left the skull was gone. Even though Katungi made sure he was carefully watched and searched when he left, the man still got away with the skull.” Her face softened. “I think he was rather brave.”

Jackson usually didn’t pick up on emotions unless they up and hit him in the side of the head, but even he caught the message behind Luna’s words. Obviously, so did Mari because he clearly heard her give an aggravated sigh.

Before she started ripping off Luna’s arms and legs like a fly, he asked, “Where was the man from?”

“He didn’t say.” A mischievous smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “But I know where he’s going.”