Chapter 22
Ashmedai
A week passed in relative monotony. Ashmedai didn’t like spending six hours each night away from Nicolas, especially when things were going so well between them.
Nicolas continued to go to HQ during the day for scheduled training sessions and every other night patrolling with his wicked squad.
On those nights, Ashmedai often made it back to his apartment before Nicolas did.
And on nights when Nicolas didn’t have to patrol, Ashmedai crawled into bed and curled around his sleeping form.
Sometimes it turned into more, if Nicolas woke and sleepily prodded for it.
Ashmedai liked those nights; they were filled with slick, hot pleasures that took his mind off the ever-growing hunger that gnawed at his bones.
But he also liked the nights where they didn’t.
There was an intimacy in simply sharing body heat and soothing touches with another.
And then, one night near the end of his shift, just after midnight, their luck finally turned.
Nicolas wasn’t patrolling tonight, and Ashmedai was fantasizing about the moment he could shed his restrictive Earth clothing and curl around his human’s sleep-warm body when Kyle Morris left his apartment, glancing around the darkened street as he walked to his car in the adjacent parking lot.
His soul was like murky water, dark and roiling.
Ashmedai followed him across the city, teleporting from one vantage point to the next to keep the car in his sights.
It came to a stop in a rundown part of the city.
Few humans loitered here, as there were no open businesses and nothing of value.
Factories, Ashmedai thought. Like the one on the night he’d met Nicolas, but older and abandoned.
Kyle parked his car out of sight of the street behind one of these sprawling buildings and went inside.
The building was unassuming on the outside, with windows that were opaque with dirt and metal walls that were rusted by the salty sea air. The threshold shimmered as Ashmedai approached the door, and he pressed his hand against the invisible barrier.
This abandoned building was warded against demons. Whatever was inside, they didn’t want demons finding it.
He circled the building. There were a handful of other cars near Kyle’s, all various kinds of gray sedans, just like Kyle’s. All paladins, he assumed.
Teleporting a safe distance away, he withdrew the small phone the Sentinels had given him and opened what they called the group chat.
I think ive found the secret location kyle goes to old factory building warded
Talon
Wonderful. Let’s meet at your apartment. Easier for everyone to get there without being seen.
Storm
And tell Nic you want punctuation lessons
Malachi
Says the guy who just didn’t use a period
Storm
Mine was a stylistic choice. His is because he doesn’t know how to text
Annoying
He pocketed the phone with a roll of his eyes and teleported to Nicolas’s apartment. His phone was quietly buzzing on the bedside table as the group chat continued to chime. Ashmedai settled on the edge of the bed and leaned over, kissing him awake.
“Mm,” Nicolas hummed sleepily, casting a hand out for him and encountering Ashmedai’s coat. “You’re still dressed. Get over here.”
“Can’t. Have to meet the others at the apartment.”
Nicolas blinked himself awake, knuckling one eye with his free hand while the other made a home on Ashmedai’s thigh. “What? Why? Something happen?”
“I think I’ve found where Kyle has been going.”
“Oh.” Nicolas looked at him seriously, and then yawned. “Do I have time to make some coffee?”
“I can make it. You dress.”
“You can?”
Ashmedai leaned in and licked the tip of his nose. “Yes. Dress.”
“You’ve gotten bossy.”
“Was always bossy. I just use more words now.”
Nicolas’s chuckle followed him from the room. “That’s true.”
He’d seen Nicolas make coffee many times by now, but he’d never paid much attention to the actual ratio of powder to water.
He dithered for a moment, studying the tub of ‘coffee grounds,’ and then realized there were directions on the side.
A scoop for two cups. So he filled the water reservoir to the ‘four’ and added two scoops, just to be sure Nicolas would have as much as he wanted.
He hit the button to turn the machine on, pleased with himself—
And then the coffee poured straight out onto the burner, because he was still holding the carafe.
“Fuck,” he said instinctively, shoving the carafe under the drip.
He heard a thump from the bedroom, and Nicolas called out, “Did you just say ‘fuck’? I’ve never heard you say that before.”
“I-I did.”
Nicolas appeared in the dark kitchen, rubbing his elbow and grinning. “You’re picking up quite the vocabulary.”
Ashmedai cast him a bashful look only to realize Nicolas couldn’t see anything more than his eyes.
He watched his human open a cabinet and fumble for a cup—a metal mug with a clear lid, which he almost knocked over.
Did it bother him to spend so much time in the dark for Ashmedai’s sake?
Did his diminished eyesight make him feel like he was missing something?
Ashmedai removed the lid from the cup and poured the coffee for him. “Isn’t it hard for you to see in the dark?”
Nicolas huffed out a laugh. “I mean, yeah, humans don’t see well in the dark.”
“Do you dislike it?”
Nicolas set the cup aside and took the lapels of Ashmedai’s coat in hand, using them to turn him bodily toward him. “Have I given you that impression?”
He hadn’t, but that didn’t change the fact that Nicolas was going without his most relied upon sense in moments like these, for Ashmedai’s comfort. “Humans weren’t meant to live in darkness.”
“I don’t live in darkness. You can walk in light; you just can’t teleport from it. I spend time in the sun almost everyday. We spend time in light with the others and at the Rink.”
“But here? In your home?”
“I turn on the lights when I’m in the bathroom or cooking in the kitchen.” Nicolas reeled him closer. “I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.”
“You deserve light.”
“Ash, baby—”
A curl of delight went through Ashmedai at the term of endearment.
“—being in the dark with you makes me feel good.”
Ashmedai tilted his head. “Oh?”
“Yeah. It almost feels like… the darkness is a part of you. A part of us. When it’s dark around me, I know I’m safe, because you’re probably close by.
Even if you aren’t actually near me, the potential is there.
You could appear at any moment. That’s not scary.
It’s relaxing. You’re the biggest, baddest thing in the dark, and it feels like I belong here with you. ”
“You do,” Ashmedai said with conviction. “I feel that way, too.” He lifted one of Nicolas’s hands and pressed it to his chest. “Just needed to check. Don’t ever want you to regret.”
“I could never regret this,” Nicolas whispered.
Ashmedai kissed him quickly, and then sighed. “Wish we had more time, but we should go. They’ll be waiting.”
“Right, yes.” Nicolas grabbed his coffee, and then Ashmedai teleported them to the apartment.
Everyone was already there when they emerged from the darkened bedroom.
A lone light above the kitchen island provided illumination for the humans, who sat around the living room in a loose circle with various degrees of worry and pensiveness on their faces.
The demons looked far more relaxed, if eager.
There was an undercurrent of excitement in the air, thrumming from person to person. Ashmedai’s jaw ached with hunger.
“Tell us what you saw,” Talon said immediately.
Ashmedai explained as best as he could. The abandoned building, the warded threshold, the multiple cars hidden out of sight of the road.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Nathan said. “Even if they don’t have the kids there, they most definitely have something worth hiding there.”
“Ira,” Luke said, “do you remember anything about our surroundings in that vision of yours?”
Ira frowned at a distant point on the floor. His dark curls were loose, spilling around his shoulders. “I don’t know. It was dim, like they were somewhere poorly lit.”
Ashmedai nodded. That sounded right.
“The walls were… bare brick, I think. I don’t remember what the door looked like. It seemed heavy, like it took effort for you to haul it open.”
“We have enough reason to storm the place, I think,” Nathan said. “This is our best lead yet. The only question is how we want to do it.”
“We go in and kill them all,” Valac said.
“We can’t,” Ashmedai said. “Wards keep our kind out.”
“So the humans go in first,” Talon suggested. “They can distract the paladins while one of them hangs back to invite us inside.”
Grimacing, Alex said, “I think the demons should stay behind.”
“Hell no,” Talon said immediately.
Alex sighed. “It’s too dangerous.”
“But it’s not dangerous for you?” Talon countered.
“They’ll be expecting us to use the demons in our group,” Alex said.
“You’re powerful; it would make sense for us to take advantage of that.
And that’s exactly why we shouldn’t. If you’re stabbed with one of their blades, it’ll heal very slowly, if it heals at all.
We don’t have that vulnerability. If we’re stabbed by a holy blade, our bodies still heal quickly with your blood in our system, because we aren’t demons.
They don’t affect us the way they do you. ”
“You can’t seriously expect us to let you go into this fight without us,” Malachi said, looking from face to face. “You think we don’t know how to handle a few paladins?”
“No, I’m sure you do,” Alex said, “but it’s a risk I think we’re all wary of taking. We know they have some tricks up their sleeve. Remember those Enochian stones?”
“Enochian stones?” Ashmedai asked.
Shadrach explained, “A few months back, some paladins attacked the Rink with these special stones. When struck together, they created a white light that burned us. Would’ve killed every demon in the room if Isaac hadn’t shown up and dragged the paladin wielding them outside.”
“What happened to the stones?” Ashmedai asked. If they fell into the wrong hands—again—that could be very bad.
“I sank them into the Mariana Trench,” Talon said. “The danger to us outweighed the benefit of keeping them.”
Ashmedai nodded in agreement. That was one less thing to worry about, at least.
“I understand you’re all concerned about something happening to us,” Valac said, getting them back on track, “but it’s for that reason that you must remember we’re equally concerned about you.
No reward is without risk. You may heal quickly, but you can still be killed.
It’s unfair to expect us to stay behind. We all have vulnerabilities.”
“Nothing you can say will make me stay behind and let you walk into this fight alone,” Talon said calmly. “We’re doing this together, as we do all things.”
Alex sighed. “I’m just worried this is some kind of trap.”
“All the more reason we should do it together,” Talon said.
“Don’t think this means you demons get to have all the fun, though,” Isaac said.
“Isaac volunteers to be first through the door, I think,” Nathan said, shooting him a teasing smile.
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Isaac said cheerfully.
“When do we want to do this, then?” Nicolas asked. He was anxious to begin. Ashmedai could read the emotion in his eyes and felt it reflected in his own heart. They were so close to ending this, and then they could finally be together.
No one responded at first, eyes meeting as they all looked from one to another.