Embrace the Night
Page 34

My tongue dragged a slow arc across him, just below his navel. His pulse was quick and frantic against my lips, the echo of it under my fingers as they moved to the fastening of his jeans. “Cassie—” Pritkin’s voice sounded oddly scraped and rough, but I ignored it, except to note with approval that he’d said my name again. Twice in one day—that was a record.
I was discovering that I really liked old jeans. Once the first button came undone, the others obligingly slid out of their holes with a single tug. “Oh, God,” Pritkin whispered, sounding almost panicked for some reason. He stared at me, breath heavy, and the wild need on his face warred with something close to terror. His irises were half black, with just a tiny band of green. And he was literally clinging to the bed by his fingernails, as if it was the only thing that kept the ragged torrent of emotions coursing between us from jerking him to me like a yo-yo.
I hardly noticed when the air began to move around us, drawing in toward an unseen center, catching up the clothes scattered on the floor and swirling them about. A ragged-edged cry that sounded like an incantation tore from Pritkin’s throat. And a glimmer of red appeared in the shadows, like the wet flicker of the northern lights, lapping at the outlines of a man. I blinked, and the figure behind the glow stepped through, the red mirage parting like fog. I blinked again, harder this time, sure I was hallucinating, staring in disbelief from Pritkin’s face to its mirror image.
“She has to die,” the man said, almost conversationally. He noted Pritkin’s expression and his answering smile was somehow both sweet and viciously cruel. “I promise it won’t hurt.”
“What is your interest in her?” Pritkin’s tone was filled with loathing.
“She talked to Saleh.” His double’s eyes came to rest on me, and there was no life, no heat, nothing human in them, only cold appraisal. I couldn’t believe I had ever confused the two men. “She knows.”
Before I could clear my mind enough even to frame a question, Pritkin had launched himself off the bed onto the new arrival. He hit him straight in the chest, the momentum taking them both to the floor. They rolled around the limited space, their magic crackling together in spits and sputters, while I looked around for something, anything, to use as a weapon.
I had a bracelet, which had once been the property of a dark mage, that was always up for a rumble. Unfortunately, it had a mind of its own and didn’t always follow my instructions. I didn’t dare use it now, as it was not fond of Pritkin and there was a better-than-average chance that it would attack the wrong guy.
There was enough firepower in the closet to outfit a small army, but I couldn’t reach it, and the only thing on this side of the room was the bedside lamp. It didn’t look too sturdy, but I yanked it out of the wall anyway, just in time to see Pritkin immersed in a slow-curving maelstrom of blinding white. There was a loud crackle and power rent the air, as if lightning had struck inside the room. The flash turned me momentarily blind, and then something was on me.
He—it—was touching me, holding me down, but I could feel no heat from his body, and there was no scent, not the faintest whiff of aftershave or the leather of his coat. Even though I was used to such things from ghosts, there was a kind of horror to it, being held down by such a blank. Unthinkingly, I reached out with my senses, desperate to find something human to ground me. What I saw was alive and squirming, but not human—God, not human at all.
I could feel its need building like a thousand thunderstorms, an overpowering hunger that wanted nothing more than to melt into me and feed and feed and feed. A smothering cloud descended on my skin, and now I could feel it, sliding cold hands over my body, could taste the miasma of corruption lingering at the back of its throat when it kissed me. The cloud began to sink into my skin, rushing into my body as I breathed in its clammy breath, pushing past my defenses until it ran through my bloodstream sickeningly.
It touched me everywhere, consuming me from the inside out. And it had lied. It did hurt, with a horrible, draining sensation far worse than a vampire’s bite. It felt like razored teeth were slicing into me everywhere, running like a blade between muscle and bone, turning even the air in my lungs to broken glass.
I was supposed to be protected from this kind of thing. My mother’s only legacy was the pentagram-shaped tattoo on my back that was one of the Circle’s strongest enchantments. She had once been heir to the Pythia position, before she ran away with my father and was disowned, and the star had been given to her as security. It packed quite a punch, but the geis interfered with it. Meaning that if I was going to get out of this, it would have to be on my own.
I tried to fight, but my arms and legs wouldn’t move, all my strength pouring into the thing holding me so gently in its grasp. My body felt as heavy and lifeless as if the creature had already finished feeding. Only I knew it hadn’t, because I could feel it gnawing through bone and into marrow, the lethargy ensuring that I couldn’t even scream as it sucked my life away. My consciousness turned slippery and unresponsive, my body trying to shield me from what was happening, from what was coming—
And then it was gone, pulled off by Pritkin’s arm around its throat. I stared at it, Pritkin’s mirror image except that it glowed as brightly as flame, energized with stolen power. And just like that, the pieces fell into place.
“You’re an incubus!” I was addressing the spirit, but it was Pritkin who answered.
“Only half,” he snarled, wrenching the creature’s neck savagely enough to have shattered a human’s spine.
In a move too fast for me to see, the creature broke the mage’s hold, spun and sent Pritkin sailing into the window. He struck it hard, knocking the colored glass panes out of place, sending them exploding outward. The creature whirled on me again, and his eyes were a flat, solid black, as if the pupils had bled out.
I threw out a hand, a scream rising in my throat, but I never uttered it. Because suddenly the attack just stopped. There was no sound, no movement. Nothing.
After a stunned second, I realized that the red spots in front of my eyes were a few shards of ruby glass, slung in my direction by the fight. They remained halfway through their arc, hovering in midair as if waiting for permission to fall. Everything else was also frozen in place, from the dark-eyed demon to Pritkin, caught halfway through the broken surface of the window, its sharp edges digging into his skin. In the entire room, I was the only thing moving.
Agnes, the former Pythia, had been able to do this, to literally stop time for short periods, but I’d never learned how. With an abrupt, white-hot spike of fear, I also realized that I didn’t know how to undo it, either. I decided to worry about that later and deal with the problem I did know how to solve. I grabbed a bottle off Pritkin’s shelf, uncorked the stopper and threw the entire thing in the demon’s face.
Other than turning his hair slightly pink, nothing happened. I panicked a little after that, and started throwing everything I could lay my hands on. Vials of liquid, clear and odorless as water, were followed by others containing syrupy, viscous substances with odors that made my head swim. But despite the fact that Pritkin’s arsenal was especially designed for battling demons, nothing seemed to have the slightest effect.
I emptied the entire shelf, all the while unable to look away from the potion-streaked face in front of me. The sensation of being watched from behind those glittering black eyes was more than creepy. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as my own stare began to waver, and suddenly everything started up again.
Pritkin crashed the rest of the way through the window, and the demon screamed. The sound mixed with the silvery ring of broken glass and seemed truly agonized. I guess the potions had failed to take effect because of the timeout I’d taken, but they were sure doing something now. Some set his clothes and hair alight, searing the air with the smell of burning leather. He tried to put the flames out with his hands, but that only blistered his skin. And the last potion I’d thrown, dark red with a thick, peppery smell, made his face begin to run like melting wax.
After a moment, he gave up trying to save himself and instead grasped at me. I reached for my power, but it was sluggish, the cost of that momentary hiccup in time tremendous. I threw the lamp at him, but he batted it away with a roar, half rage and half pain. His hair was almost gone now, burnt down to the roots by the fire consuming him with inhuman glee. But it wouldn’t be soon enough.
I raised my right arm, where two glowing, gaseous knives emerged from the bracelet I wore. There was only one Pritkin in the room now, and I didn’t much care what they did to this one. That was lucky since they tore into the demon with their usual abandon.
“Cassie!” Billy was waving at me frantically over the smoking skull of my attacker. “Over here!”
Like I didn’t know where the weapons were. “What do you think I’m trying to do?!” My knives were flying about, sticking into and out of their prey so wildly that I could barely see them. I didn’t dare move. “Get me something!”
Nothing happened for a moment, then a clanging avalanche of weapons hit the floor. Billy had managed to knock over the closet shelf. Most stayed where they fell, but a single knife slid across the floor and bumped my foot. I grabbed it, but the demon was thrashing around at my feet, not staying still long enough for me to use it.
“Finish him!” Billy was flickering in his agitation. “Do it!”
“I’m trying!”
The demon couldn’t see me, being blinded by the acid that had almost completely eaten away his face. But he could hear, and he rolled toward me, hands outstretched. His skin was a cracked mess of charred black and red, and the leather coat had melted against him in patches. I stared down at him, feeling suddenly queasy that I had done this to anything, even something as vile as him. What the hell was happening to me?
He turned what had been his face up to me, beseechingly, and I hesitated. In less time than it took to blink, he had me by the foot, the raw bones of his fingers sliding against my skin in a slick caress. Immediately, the horrible draining sensation was back, my power flooding into him from that one small touch.