Hellforged

Page 12

“Thanks, Daniel. It seems wrong to shove T.J. aside as though … as though he never existed.”
He nodded. “I understand. I’ll see what I can find out.” He checked his watch, then drained his coffee cup and pulled on his jacket. “I’d better get back to work. How about dinner tonight?”
“Don’t you mean breakfast? I’m going straight to bed after I leave here.”
He flashed a “wish I could join you” smile, but he didn’t say the words. Not that either one of us had gotten anywhere near the other’s bed. I blushed anyway.
“Okay, breakfast. We’ll find a place that’ll whip you up an omelet. Say around seven?”
“It sounds like fun, but I can’t. I’m giving Tina a lesson tonight.”
“What time will you be done?”
“Nine-ish.” A little late for breakfast, I thought. Dinner, too. “Anyway, I’m working. I’ve got a Drude extermination in the Fenway, and I need to be at the client’s condo at ten to set up.”
He stared into the distance for a few seconds, then shook his head. “I’ve got to be up at six thirty tomorrow. So I guess a nightcap won’t work, either.”
This was why I had so few dates—with anyone, of any species. “There’s no way to tell how long the extermination will take. Depends on how many Drudes—could be midnight, could be three A.M.”
“Another time, then.” A wistful half-smile curled his lips.
“Okay.”
Daniel stood. He stepped toward me, bent slightly, and brushed his lips against my cheek. One arm found its way around my shoulders in an almost-hug. I closed my eyes and soaked in his warmth.
“Promise?” His voice, soft in my ear, was as warm as his flesh.
All my words seemed to have fled, so I nodded.
“Good.” When I opened my eyes again, he’d straightened and was smiling at me. Then his eyes changed, and he put on his cop face. I watched him walk out of the coffee shop and into the bright, cold day. But the warmth of him lingered on my skin.
I SNUGGLED UNDER MY COMFORTER, TRYING TO CONVINCE myself I was sleepy. But it was no good. I’d been tossing and turning for half an hour, and I couldn’t get warm. Any warmth I’d borrowed from Daniel was long gone. My toes were icy, even with socks on, and it’s impossible to fall asleep with cold feet. It didn’t help that I’d stayed to finish my coffee after Daniel left, and then let the waitress refill my mug one last time. How could I say no when she called me “hon”?
Too much coffee and chilly toes were just excuses, and I knew it. The truth? I was afraid to fall asleep. Now I understood how my nightmare-plagued clients felt. But it wasn’t a couple of pesky Drudes that had invaded my dream; this was a Hellion. The one I thought I’d sent back to Hell for good.
I didn’t understand how Difethwr had trespassed in my dreamscape. The Hellion was bound to me; I bore its mark on my arm. I’d strengthened that bond myself a few months ago, in order to banish the demon from Boston. It was a risky thing to do—as far as I knew, none of the Cerddorion had ever attempted such a thing. But my gambit had worked. Difethwr had stayed away. For weeks, I’d been free of the near-uncontrollable rages that my demon mark sometimes caused. The mark hadn’t even twinged. Difethwr was trapped in Hell.
Or had been, until it showed up in my dream.
Somehow, the Hellion had used me as a portal to bypass Boston’s protective shield. That was the point of destroying my watch. Difethwr wanted to demonstrate that what I saw in my dreamscape was the real thing, not some dream-image. Difethwr was real, the watch was real. The crow that delivered it was probably real, too.
In Welsh mythology, crows are a bad omen, symbolizing impending death. That omen had sure as hell come to pass.
Damn it, I was supposed to protect this city from creatures like Hellions. Not throw open my dreamscape like a door and invite them in.
But some things didn’t fit. The attack on T.J. didn’t match the Destroyer’s style. To kill, Difethwr shot flames from its eyes, mouth, and hands, burning up its victim’s soul. T.J.’s body should have been intact, but with hellfire raging inside. That was how Difethwr killed my father. But I’d never seen the Destroyer—or anything—attack in a way that was even remotely like what happened to T.J.
I turned onto my back and stared into the darkness.
I needed to talk to Aunt Mab. She’d trained me, and no one knew more about demons. I should have fessed up months ago, after I strengthened my bond to the Hellion. And I’d meant to, I really had, but when days and then weeks went by without a peep from Difethwr, I thought maybe I’d vanquished it.
That was too proud, and more than a little stupid. Because Difethwr was sure as hell peeping now.
You’d think that, at twenty-eight, I’d have lost my terror of a scolding from my aunt. But of course you’d only think such a thing if you didn’t know Mab. She was strict and stern. She made no allowances for even the teensiest mistake. But there was no better demon fighter. And if there was one person who could help me figure out what was going on, it was Mab.
I needed to talk to her. Now.
The Cerddorion have a psychic connection that functions best through the pathways of the mind that open in sleep. When Gwen and I were teenagers, we called this connection the dream phone, and we used it to chat about boys, clothes, and music long after Mom had turned out the lights. The dream phone was the quickest and most reliable way to get in touch with Aunt Mab, who’d never bothered to install a real telephone at Maenllyd, her remote manor house in north Wales.
It didn’t matter that it was early evening in Wales. Mab could communicate by dream phone even while awake. I wasn’t that advanced in my skills; I had to be asleep, or close to it, to place or receive a call. So lying board-straight in my bed, wide-awake and unable to relax, wasn’t the best idea right now.
But I couldn’t help it. Worrying about a Hellion sneaking into Boston through my dreams wasn’t much of a sleeping pill. And taking a real sleeping pill would leave me too zonked to make the call.
I willed myself to sleep—a guaranteed way to keep insomnia going. I tried counting sheep. Has that ever actually worked for anyone? I got to three hundred and forty-two before I gave up.
I was still cold. Maybe a warm bath would soothe me to slumber. Reluctantly, I threw back the covers. The bedroom was freezing. Juliet liked the apartment cold when she slept in her coffin, but this was ridiculous. When I clicked on the bedside lamp, I could see my breath form little puffs of steam. It felt like Juliet had opened all the windows to the frigid night air. I pulled on my bathrobe and stuck my feet into slippers, then opened the bedroom door and padded out into the hallway. It was even colder out here. I’d turn up the temperature a few degrees before drawing my bath. The way it was now, stepping into my nice, warm bath would feel like plunging into a tub of ice cubes. I headed for the living room to adjust the thermostat.
In the hallway, I paused as a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature prickled the back of my neck. A low murmur of voices flowed from the living room. Was Juliet watching TV? It didn’t sound like it. She always turned the sound way up, forgetting she had a roommate who might happen to be sleeping. Besides, one of the voices sounded like Juliet’s. Sort of. She spoke in a hushed monotone, like she was chanting. Other voices—two? more?—chanted something in response. I couldn’t make out the words, but they didn’t sound like English. I listened. Some kind of ritual? The voices would say something, and Juliet repeated it.
Half-blind in the dim light that spilled from my bedroom, I crept forward and tried to peer into the darkness. Juliet sat in a chair, facing me. Her eyes were closed, but her lips moved. Beside her stood a robed figure. It was tall, over six feet, and a hood shaded its face. Icy waves of bitter cold rolled off the creature. It reached out a skeletal hand and touched Juliet’s chest, over her heart.
At its touch, her eyes flew open. Immediately, they focused on me. “Vicky!” she gasped in that strange voice. The creature turned. Its hood fell back, revealing a skull-like face with massive yellow fangs. The thing snarled and launched itself through the air. It was like being tackled by an iceberg. A brickbat of ice, an explosion of stars, and then total blackness.
8
SOMETHING WAS BEEPING. SHORT, SHARP BURSTS OF HIGH-PITCHED sound pushed their way into my throbbing brain, piercing my consciousness like arrows. Eyes closed, I reached out and hit at various objects on my nightstand until I managed to turn off the alarm.
I opened one eye. It made no difference whatsoever, thanks to the blackout shades. But when I turned on my side, the glowing red numbers on my bedside clock read 6:00 P.M., the time I’d set the alarm for. I’d been out about four hours. The last thing I remembered, I’d been attacked in the hallway, but here I was, tucked into my bed and feeling like someone had split my skull open with an ax. Gingerly, I touched the pain’s epicenter on the left side of my forehead. There was no goose egg, not even a bump. In fact, the pain was already fading. By the time I sat up, it was nearly gone.
The apartment was warmer. As I got out of bed, it felt downright toasty. I opened my bedroom door and listened. No chanting, but the clink of utensils drifted from the kitchen. I picked up the bronze-bladed dagger I kept on my nightstand and held it ready as I edged down the hallway, sliding my back along the wall. I stopped short of the living room and peered around the corner. The room was empty. On the coffee table, Kane’s roses had all wilted, slumped over as if in defeat. Still clutching the dagger, I crept through the living room to the kitchen doorway.
Juliet sat alone at the black-and-chrome table, sipping coffee.
Feeling paranoid, I tucked the dagger into my waistband at the small of my back and entered the room.
“Evening.” I took a mug from the cupboard. Inhaling the fragrant steam as I filled it with coffee, I felt almost normal.
Juliet looked up from the paper she was reading—News of the Dead, a real tabloid rag but the only newspaper specifically for the paranormal community—and smiled a closed-lipped vampire smile. She went back to the paper.