Demon in Disguise (Bedeviled #4)

Chapter 1

Even in a liminal wasteland ruled by chaos magic, where every second was objectively miserable and cartoonishly dangerous, this listing wall made of human bones, some with hair and sinew still attached, was, quite frankly, a bit much.

I grimaced at the eyeless skull jammed unceremoniously between two femurs. “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.”

My half sister, Maud Liu, uncapped her Nalgene. “A man of that infinite a jest wouldn’t rock a toupee.” The British notes in her voice were flavored by her native Hong Kong accent. “That low-budget costume piece stuck to his pate marks him a Boris or, no, wait. Shiny Jimmy.” She took a long swig, blotting sweat off her forehead with her free hand.

The arid heat sandblasted our skin and had me swallowing every few seconds to keep moisture in my mouth.

I pulled out a finger bone that jutted out of the wall and touched it to the top of the skull like I was knighting him. “Shiny Jimmy. A petty thug with big dreams.”

“A brawler of very little brain,” Maud replied. “I may have dated him in my early twenties. Any protein bars left?”

I rummaged in the heavy pack resting in the dirt against the wall and tossed her a coconut-flavored one, grabbing a handful of trail mix for myself.

After nine hours of battling unpredictable weather, manic terrain, and distances with a maddening habit of contracting and expanding at will, our quest to find a secret fortress here in the Brink had led us to this single file dirt track alongside the aforementioned bone wall.

I squatted down and sketched a tic-tac-toe grid in the dirt with the finger bone. “Play you for the last trail mix with M&M’s while we wait for?—”

The ground rumbled so violently that my teeth rattled. Suddenly, the bones in one long section of the wall exploded out to fan themselves in a herky-jerky motion before fusing together in a nightmarish mélange, piling higher and higher until the creature’s shadow blotted out the sun.

Which wasn’t a bad thing, given how hot it was.

Less ideal was the giant wearing a kneecap like a jaunty beret, a waterfall of ribs on its left side, and arm bones sticking out every which way. He rocked on webbed feet cobbled together from a couple of pelvic bones and part of a spine.

A second skull, at about butt cheek height, worked its boney mouth. “I AM SHINY JIMMY.”

Ezra Cardoso, sole remaining Prime among all the vampires in existence, blurred to a stop next to us, wearing a very human peeved expression. Streaks of dirt marred his T-shirt and jeans, his motorcycle boots were scuffed, and his jet-black curls were a riotous halo in this humidity. He raised an eyebrow. “You named it?”

Maud and I exchanged guilty looks.

“Only jokingly,” I said lamely.

“YOU HAVE OFFENDED ME,” Shiny Jimmy said. “NOW YOU WILL PAY.”

Ezra huffed a sigh that was purely for show since breathing wasn’t a requirement for my ex. “Please inform them how they have caused offense so they may grovel for forgiveness.”

“Really?” I stepped forward, my hands planted on my hips.

“This is not the hill to die on,” he muttered, snagging my damp shirt and tugging me backward.

“YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW THE CAUSE OF YOUR OFFENSE?” Shiny Jimmy beat on the patchwork of bones forming his chest. His butt-high skull gnashed its jawbones together.

“Would you have preferred Boris?” Maud said.

Shiny Jimmy roared and swung a fist made of teeth and ropey muscle at her.

Ezra barely got her out of harm’s way, only to be clocked in the side of the head. “What did you do?” he snapped, wincing as his fingers probed a tender spot.

“Nothing!” I flung my arms up in the air.

Light glistened off the fingerbone I clutched.

“Ohhhhhh.” I held it out to Shiny Jimmy. “You want this back?”

Ezra dropped his head in despair.

Shiny Jimmy snatched it away, using it, so far as I could tell, as an eyebrow ridge. It really improved his glower.

Ezra jabbed me in the back.

“Oh, Shiny Jimmy,” I said, bowing low with my arms prostrate, “please accept my most humble apologies for the offense I have caused. It was wrong of me to take your finger.”

“WHO DOES THAT? I MEAN, WERE YOU RAISED BY SUPE-VULTURES?”

“She didn’t have much of a father figure,” Maud said.

I flipped her off. “Says the woman with the same deadbeat dad.”

Maud swallowed her bite of protein bar. “Unlike you, I understand right and wrong enough to know that my path—and a lovely heap of cash—lay in professionally fleecing lesser card sharks. You keep trying to make a difference. For peanuts.”

“I WANTED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE,” Shiny Jimmy said mournfully.

“So, being a wall wasn’t your endgame?” I said.

“For fuck’s sake, Aviva.” Ezra pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I SOUGHT THE POWER WORD.” Shiny Jimmy gingerly lowered himself into a sitting position with a lot of bone rattling and the loss of a couple of toes, which he scrupulously collected.

“Funny you should mention that,” I said, attempting to throw my arm over the part of him that passed for a shoulder. I hit something squishy between two boney platelets but kept a friendly smile on my face as I wiped my hand off on my grubby jeans. “We’re on the hunt for it ourselves.”

“YOU’LL JUST FAIL AND BECOME A WALL.” Shiny Jimmy sounded very much like Eeyore.

“If it’s any consolation,” Maud said, “you’re not just some basic alley wall that people piss against. You’re a fine cautionary tale wall.”

Shiny Jimmy nodded, considering her point. “SINCE 1983.”

Dayum. “How much of this”—I waved a hand at the bone mélange—“was actually you?”

“MY ENTIRE PARTY WAS ADDED TO THIS WALL, HERE TO WARN OTHERS OFF.” He sighed deeply, the sound vibrating through the bones, along the ground, and up through the soles of my hiking boots. “BUT GO ON. TELL US WHY YOU WANT TO USE THE WORD.”

I swear he was smirking.

“We don’t plan to use it,” I began.

Shiny Jimmy cut me off with a disgusted huff. Quite the feat for an entity that one hundred percent did not possess lungs. “THAT’S WORSE. WHY WOULD YOU SUBJECT YOURSELF TO THIS IF YOU DON’T EVEN WANT IT?”

“Give a woman five minutes to speak,” I said. “Here’s the deal. There’s this mystic Jewish concept of neshamah, the breath of life or divine spark connecting every living being to the source of all life.”

“DO I HAVE THAT SPARK?”

Maud shook her head. “‘Fraid not, pet. You’re a wall.”

Ezra facepalmed but Shiny Jimmy shook his head resignedly. “FAIR ENOUGH.”

“Vamps,” I continued with a stern look at my team to keep mum, “lack this essential spark and thus, the ability to procreate.”

“Other vamps,” Ezra said.

I raised my eyebrows at him, and he shrugged, unrepentant, kicking a stray bone aside with his boot.

“INFERNALS CAN PROCREATE. DOUBT THEY HAVE THE SPARK.”

I did a double take. “You know about them?”

“I WAS ONE.”

Maud and I stared at him, waiting for more, but that was all he was sharing. His admission threw me for a loop. Sure, I didn’t want the power word that would turn vamps into Primes and allow them to procreate for my personal use, but “becoming a sentient wall” wasn’t on my bingo card either.

Were Maud and I more at risk on this quest by the very nature of our being? In the month since Ezra’s father, Natán, had told me what vamp invincibility actually entailed, Darsh, Sachie, and I had uncovered everything we could about the ritual to achieve it.

Sadly, our progress had been limited by our workload. Darsh and Sachie were busy quelling a nasty spree of vamp murders (admittedly pretty fun), while I’d been busting my butt running my first (far more banal) investigation as a level three operative.

The infernal blood that was integral to this vamp ritual remained missing but finding the map with the secret exit out of Babel to this part of the Brink where the fortress was supposedly located was a much-needed win.

Ezra helped where he could, but the Copper Hell was its own trainwreck, not only because of the demon running it, but also because it now hid Silas, still deep in mourning over the Authority’s betrayal.

Anyway, all of that had led to this moment with Ezra, Maud, and me in the Brink, searching for the fortress that was home to the keepers of the power word. Once we found it, I’d convince its inhabitants not to let the vampires have the word, get the name of the bloodsucker behind this dangerous scheme, then track them down and hopefully find the missing blood.

It wasn’t as surefire a plan as I’d like, but it wasn’t chopped liver either. Plus, I’d finally gotten to see Ezra in person. Our texts and occasional video calls over the past month were fun, but it wasn’t the same as being in his presence. Even our dinner date had been pushed back three times.

Speaking of my maybe-not-totally-any-longer ex, he jumped into the dumbfounded silence now, correcting Shiny Jimmy about half shedim not having that divine spark. The proof of that was that while not all half shedim made it to term, those who did could have kids.

“HOW DOES THAT HELP VAMPIRES ACHIEVE PROCREATION?”

“The chaotic essence of a half shedim’s demon magic disrupts the stagnant energies within vampires,” Ezra said. “This allows the divine spark that is also in their blood to be transmitted to the vamps via the magic in the power word.”

“DON’T THE HALF SHEDIM HAVE NEED OF THE DIVINE SPARK?”

“Sure do,” I said tightly. “Be nice to keep our blood as well, but the ritual decrees otherwise.”

Shiny Jimmy looked between the grim expressions on Maud’s face and mine. “brUTAL. MAYBE I PICKED A GOOD TIME TO BE A WALL.”

“Chaos magic, divine spark via blood, and a power word come together to rekindle the life force within vampires, turning them into Primes.” Ezra paused. “Or something resembling Primes. They aren’t naturally born like I was.”

“No substandard GMO for this vamp,” Maud chirped.

“Exactly.” Ezra ignored her sarcasm.

“This isn’t the hill to die on,” I said to my ex through gritted teeth.

“I’m just saying. Primes can have kids, but that isn’t the sum total of my abilities.”

Shiny Jimmy had been swiveling his head back and forth like he was watching a tennis match, but his patience must have hit its limit, because he shoved a hand between Ezra and me to keep us from bickering any further. “WHY NOT USE DHAMPIRS?”

“They don’t have demon chaos magic,” I said.

“They can’t have kids either,” Ezra said. “No divine spark for them.”

“Even if they could,” Maud chimed in, “we have no idea if any currently exist.”

Shiny Jimmy squinted at Ezra. “YOU HAVE KIDS?”

“Fuck no.”

Wow, okay. Did he not want kids? Not like I wanted them immediately, but I hadn’t ruled them out decisively.

“No little Primes for you?” Maud needled him.

Ezra waved Brink grit out of his face. “I haven’t had the lifestyle for them. I can’t put one in a baby backpack while rock- climbing, and I don’t think it’s good parenting to have them fall asleep at celeb parties or shush them when I’m trying to assassinate someone. Somehow I can’t see toddlers riding their tricycles at the Copper Hell.” He glanced at me, then coughed. “It’s not like I don’t want?—”

I raised my eyebrows.

“What’s important,” he said, “is that the only other Prime I knew of didn’t have them either.”

Shiny Jimmy shook his top head. The one with the kneecap beret. “STOPPING VAMPIRE BABIES IS A STUPID REASON TO BECOME A WALL. GO HOME. DRINK WINE.”

That sounded great, however, I’d taken an oath to right the wrongs of the world, and stopping a plan that would tip the power balance in favor of vampires over humans fell under that vow. “No can do,” I said. “We’re fortress-bound.”

“MAYBE.” Shiny Jimmy grinned revealing a double row of pointed teeth that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “AND MAYBE YOU DIII—OWWW.”

Ezra had punched the giant in the solar plexus, sending those bones scattering.

Shiny Jimmy shook—exactly like you’d expect a pile of bones about to collapse to shake—and reached for his missing parts.

Maud and I grabbed the bones and tossed them away as fast as we could.

“Awwww,” he said in a pitchy, more human-sounding voice. “What’d you have to do that for?” He collapsed back into an inanimate section of wall.

Maud placed her hand on her heart. “Alas, poor Shiny Jimmy. I knew him, Horatio.”

I loved having a sister.