Chapter 31
Linda hugged me when I slipped inside the dimly lit Lions Gallery. The space was stripped of all artwork, and I couldn’t look at the stark white walls without envisioning blood splattered like gruesome canvases.
Mois and Linda had been holed up here for only a few days, but it had a musty, closed-in odor.
Her father stepped forward, a white-knuckled grip on the metal case with the love locks. He was as wan with fatigue and fear as his daughter, the pair in wrinkled clothes that smelled a bit ripe. “I apologize for you having to debase yourself,” he said stiffly.
“Debase?”
“You’re forced to pretend to be one of those wretched atrocities to clean up my ex-wife’s mess.”
Linda flinched at the venom in his voice.
I didn’t love the anti-shedim bias, however, I didn’t require my synesthete vision to understand that their limbic systems were flooding their bodies with a flight-or-fight response. It also didn’t help that I was a Maccabee. From Mois’s POV, that actually counted against me. Magic had landed him and his daughter in this nightmare.
I cut them some slack. “My team is in position.”
They’d commandeered a dry cleaner across the street with a perfect view of the gallery. Ezra, Silas, and Nasir were poised to act on my signal—or if they heard things go wrong through our comms.
Meantime, Michael, Keira, and Olivier waited with them, ready to handle any human complications that might arise.
“The bars on all the gallery windows remain unbreakable,” I said. “The security gate is locked in place across the back door, and we’ve removed the mezuzah off the front doorframe.”
“There’s no back escape route?” Linda said.
“You can still unlock the door and gate and get out, but it’s better to force the demons in through the entrance that my team has eyes on,” I assured her. “That way, we have an accurate head count and won’t be surprised by others attacking from the rear.”
Mezuzahs had been affixed to all the windowsills and doorways inside the gallery, which meant the shedim couldn’t portal in. Linda had learned a few things from her mother about dealing with demons after all.
Mois tapped the case. “The sooner I trade this, the better.”
“Give it to me,” I said.
He shook his head. “I’d feel more comfort?—”
“You want to be comfortable? Book yourself into a fancy hotel when we get out of this. Let me be clear, Mr. Aviyente. You are not in charge. Without me and my people, you and your daughter will end up like your ex-wife and Troy. Your deaths will not be swift and merciful. You will suffer for daring to betray these demons.”
“We didn’t do it!” His face went blotchy red. “It was all Chandra!”
“The shedim won’t care,” I said coldly.
Stop reasoning with him . Cherry huffed. There are easier ways to make him fall in line .
I had to set the pecking order, but I didn’t want to contribute to their suffering. I held out my hand. “I’ll close this deal faster and safer than you can. Then you and Linda will be done with this. Forever.”
To Mois’s credit, his stare down lasted a good thirty seconds, but he handed the metal case over.
It felt impossibly heavy, a stark reminder of the dangerous path we trod. I couldn’t sense the prison cells, but the memory of their effect on me if I so much as unlocked the case made my hands shake.
“Three incoming,” Olivier murmured over the comms.
I nodded at the door to the employee-only area. There was a mezuzah on the frame; the shedim couldn’t get to the Aviyentes so long as they stayed behind it. “Into the back room. My team will give one knock followed by a pause and two quick raps. When you hear that, unlock the back exit and go with them.”
Linda obeyed, but Mois didn’t move.
Before I could force the issue, the gallery’s front door creaked open.
Our three shedim visitors dropped their human glamors the second they stepped through the door.
Linda gasped and Mois finally got some much-needed self-preservation, skuttling behind the protective ward.
Interesting that the shedim hadn’t arrived in their demon forms, scaring any humans who saw them. Apparently, the rush they’d receive from any panic wasn’t worth this meeting being disturbed.
They weren’t fucking around.
Neither was I.
The tallest figure, the one in front, was a writhing mass of shadowy forms barely contained in a humanoid outline. Behind it on the left stood a demon with bristly fur, long sharp elephant tusks, and an unsettling grin, while the final one was a blob with countless eyes scattered across its gelatinous mass. That multi-gaze beam was trained on us, gleaming with an otherworldly detachment that sent a chill down my spine.
Fun!
Okay, Cherry. Glad one of us was enjoying this. I dubbed the demons: Shadow, Dumbo, and Eyz. Not the most brilliant nicknames, but it was better than Death!, Death!, and Death!
“You have our locks.” Shadow’s voice was a whisper of wind that sent its words twining coldly around my limbs.
I held up the case and spoke in my best growly voice. “Exactly. I have them. Let us send the pathetic humans on their way and deal together, shedim to shedim.”
“Ixnay on the oicevay,” Ezra muttered on the comms. Michael shushed him.
The trio exchanged quick glances. Did they buy my cover story of being the one who’d freed the demons, allowing Chandra to sell them to magic criminals?
“The deal,” Dumbo said flutily, “has changed.”
“Changed how?”
“You have something far more valuable than those two measly prisons.” Drool slid out of its mouth and down its tusk. “We want it back.”
They were after the brain. One word from me and these shedim would turn their sights on Delacroix.
I required proof that Rukhsana murdered Troy, but to get that, I had to prevent Shadow, Dumbo, and Eyz from slaughtering Mois and Linda until my former informant arrived. Plus, keep Linda from using her white flame magic, which would do nothing against these demons except sign her death warrant.
I held up the metal case. “You’re telling me this isn’t valuable? Why’d you waste my business partner if that’s true?”
Olivier cursed in my ear, a sharp, shocked noise, and then muted the communication channel.
My gut churned in dread at all the things that could have just gone wrong at the dry cleaner’s, but I kept my expression impassive.
“That human overstepped.” Eyz’s voice filled the room. An impressive trick for a creature with no visible mouth, but creepy as shit.
Still, thanks for the confirmation that they were behind Chandra’s murder. Their confession wasn’t required for the vamps on my team to get the green light to kill the demons, but it was nice to have that cold case definitively solved.
Eyz floated over, every single one of their peepers narrowing at me. “You overstepped as well, shedim.”
The comm crackled back to life.
“We’re coming in,” Michael said tersely.
“No!” It wasn’t enough to kill these demons. Rukhsana had to arrive and confess.
And pay , Cherry snarled.
Eyz leaned in blobbily. “No?”
I took several steps backward. “I mean, it was just business. I don’t know about anything other than what’s in this case, but if you tell me what you seek, I can help you find it. We can come to an understanding.”
The second I told them about Delacroix, at least one, if not all of them, would decamp for the Copper Hell. My prime directive was to stall, because this plan was staying on track.
“Cécile is missing and presumed dead,” Michael said insistently in my earpiece. “Darsh rounded up most of Rukhsana’s crew and has them at a secure location, but Rukhsana is either on the warpath or she’s fled, and either way, I have to concentrate my resources on finding her.”
I blinked dumbly at the shedim, barely processing Shadow’s response about the brain.
Banish the fear , Cherry said calmly.
Fuck fear. I was going to tear Rukhsana apart with my bare hands.
“Do you have the brain?” Shadow said.
“Five minutes,” Michael said over the comms. “Then we come in, kill these shedim, and regroup.”
“No,” I said sharply. “But I know where the brain is,” I added for Shadow’s benefit.
“Take us there immediately or they die.” Shadow motioned to Eyz.
The demon stood by the threshold to the back room. The mezuzah kept him out, but sadly it didn’t keep Mois and Linda in.
The slack-jawed humans lurched toward Eyz like zombies. Or the compelled. Another few feet and they’d leave the sanctuary of that area for the main gallery and be in the demon’s clutches.
I sprinted for them but was knocked down, Dumbo’s heavy body pinning mine.
Tear out its eyes! Cherry yelled.
I used a Krav Maga move to knock the demon off, jumping to my feet just as the main gallery door crashed open.
“Sorry I’m late to the party,” Rukhsana purred. She’d shaved her head, the snake tattoo that freaked Roger out once more clearly visible. One hand was clamped on to poor Jordy’s arm.
I had a lot of blood on my hands, but so help me, none of it would be his.
Jordy trembled. “What are those things?”
Linda grabbed her father and slammed the door to the staff area.
“Back door,” I whispered into my comms. “But hold.”
Hopefully, the mezuzah ward on the closed employee-only door would keep any of the demons from detecting the vampires’ presence once they arrived.
I just needed a couple more minutes.
“Who are you?” Shadow demanded. It deployed a wraith from its center mass, the apparition winging its way to Rukhsana.
She let go of Jordy and grabbed the wraith a heartbeat before it enveloped her. Her eyes turned to slits dancing with flames. “Prisoner 32X475, at your service.”
My jaw hit the ground. Talk about a mic drop moment.
Rukhsana didn’t simply free the demon prisoners; she’d been one.
The snake tattoo leapt off her skull. Made of fire, it pounced on the wraith, tumbling with it to the floor.
Jordy bolted to my side.
Rukhsana’s tattoo had helped glamor her and without it, her face and body were a wreckage of ropey dark purple scars that twisted her mouth to one side.
I gasped. “Rukhsana? I— You’re a shedim?”
The magic snake squeezed the wraith and Shadow dimmed, the demon folding in on itself.
“Well, well,” Eyz said, swiveling its gazes to me. “It seems we have an imposter in our midst.” Neither it nor Dumbo moved. Demons respected power, and if Shadow couldn’t save itself, oh well.
Rukhsana followed his line of sight to me and her face lit up. She gave her throaty laugh whose familiarity made my chest constrict. “Did you truly believe you could successfully pretend to be a shedim? Aviva, you stupid girl.”