Demon Master 2 (The Demon Master Series) Read online

  “You are an amazing lay,” I said, smiling broadly.

  She said without a hint of arrogance, “True. I was good before I became an immortal, and let me tell you, Ring, three millennia of anything can make you a past master at the task. Or mistress, in my case, but you understand. Especially when you feel an inner desperation that drives you to feed, and you do not truly know what might happen if you do not take care of that need. It’s a forgone conclusion that immortals are experts at any number of tasks, save being merciful, I think.” We sat quietly for a moment, letting the sounds of the city surround us, pass by and, thankfully, ignore us.

  “Two centuries ago, I decided to stop running. But before I go on, let me ask you, do you think that there is a difference between immortality and magic?” She regarded me from half-closed lids, thinking.

  I tapped my jaw with my fingers then answered, “Yes.”

  “How do you know?” She was testing me.

  “I have evidence, secondhand but very reliable, of witches. I have firsthand evidence of warlocks, and I have personally killed no less than six of them over the years. I find them to be vile, cowardly, and cunning, but not immortal. They share some qualities with immortals, but they seem to be over-reaching humans who have mastered blood arts but not conquered death itself. Is that about right?” I asked her hopefully. It was the best I could do.

  She laid her hand on my arm, and in a familiar, honeyed voice, said, “You are more correct than you can know. There is magic, and there is—whatever I am. The two overlap, but are not one and the same. Witches and warlocks are rarely beneficial; they tend to be sociopaths prior to performing their first incantation. They often work under the care of grotesque Undying who inhabit niches none of us immortals care to see.”

  “Like ghouls?”

  “Precisely. But in their early years, it is possible to use witches much like a tool, which brings me back to my arrival in New Orleans and how I hired a dreadful little man who called himself ‘The Carpenter.’”

  “Colorful,” I said, imagining a witch using Jesus of Nazareth’s career choice as his working name. It might not have been well-received in Catholic New Orleans.

  She laughed. “He was quite the nonbeliever, but an absolute genius with wood and some stone. I tasked him with a special defense for me, unique to my home, and one that would remain foolproof for all eternity.”

  “I take it we’re not talking about a moat filled with crocodiles?” I smiled.

  “No, beasties of such temperament have no business anywhere near my home, unless it is in the form of a darling handbag. But back to the point—he harrumphed and toiled for months before he brought me a single plank, perhaps four feet long, that had smooth, unremarkable stones peeping through every foot or so, as if they had worn naturally through the wood over centuries. It was pretty, in a homespun sort of way, but hardly the finished product I had imagined. I asked him to tell me why I had given him a fortune in silver, and he responded, in his ugly little voice, that I must have a test subject of sorts, who must be male, and he must willingly step onto the wooden section. Well, needless to say, men were not in short supply for me, so I simply called over one of my male servants who stepped onto the plank—” She paused, awash with memory. “He dropped to the ground as if struck dead, curling into himself and mewling, weeping. I think he may have wet himself, too—and he kept screaming over and over, ‘Mother, forgive me, I was only a boy. I knew not of your sickness’ until I took mercy on him and rolled him from the object. He slept for a full day, and when he awoke his memory was as muddled as a fever victim, save for bits in which he retold the loss of his mother to some flux when he was a child. It was, he said, his most painful memory ever, and it came to him in whispers from the wood on which he walked.”

  I was stunned silent. A floor that revisited your fears, your shame, your heartache. It was ruthless, and brilliant.

  “The Carpenter went on to tell me that it would take a full year to finish the work, and asked where I wanted it placed. I didn’t hesitate; I told him to build in a circle in my chamber, and raise my bed onto a dais in the middle where none could harm me. I should mention, too, that the murmurs from the wood and stone are completely fatal to women, and in all these years, I have never seen a female survive more than three paces onto the floor.”

  That would stop even the most ardent admirers from becoming a nuisance. Soiling one’s pants in front of a woman such as Delphine would be enough to cool me off a bit, and perhaps moving to another continent would be in order, too. Shame is a powerful motivation.

  I asked, “Has this floor of murmurs ever killed a man? From the weight of his own memory or regrets?”

  She didn’t hesitate to nod. “Twice.”

  “Would you care to elaborate?” I asked.

  She sighed theatrically. “The most recent was less than four years ago. A grotesquely wealthy Saudi spent considerable money to track me down after we had lunch once.”

  “Ahh. Lunch. A memorable affair, I’m sure,” I added, drily.

  She gave a prim sniff and went on, ever the lady. “Well, it was a rather enthusiastic lunch, so yes, he was smitten, and I sensed while feeding from him that he was in poor health. Or, perhaps I should say, his grasp on life was weakened by a bad heart. I could hear his arrhythmia from three feet away, and I knew that a second meal would prove fatal.” She adjusted her dress in an approximation of modesty that only added to her wicked charm.

  “I imagine he found you, whereupon you retreated to your bedchamber for protection? Where was Joseph? Where was your staff?”

  “Neutralized. He brought security goons with him, very serious fellows, all angular faces, earpieces, and automatic weapons. It was quite the overkill for dealing with me as I tried to tell him, but the buffoon would not listen to reason. I stood on my bed, shouting at him to stop, but he blundered forward with the delicacy of a charging rhino. He did not get very far, the oaf.” Her voice was rueful but unforgiving. In truth, I think the deceased was probably an asshole, but that didn’t mean he deserved to die. “He coughed, and his lips turned blue, and his security tried to reach him, but they, too, were overcome, and I was forced to roll his corpse to the doorway, shrieking at the remaining conscious men to never come back. They carried him away, and I never heard of it again.”

  “That’s a highly effective deterrent. Who was the first victim of this lethal home improvement?” I said as an invitation to continue.

  Delphine seemed troubled by a vivid memory, but after closing her lips firmly once, she decided to share the answer. “Let me ask you first, do you think I am a private person despite my curse?”

  Describing her needs in such a negative manner was a first for Delphine, at least around me. It gave me pause. My first impressions of this new side of Delphine made her quite human, and within that context, I could compare her to people, not immortals. This newfound information made me realize I had learned lot about her about her in a short time. With that in mind, no fool would think she was anything but an extremely private person.

  “I hope you think I’m smart enough to distinguish between sex and access to your life as I understand it,” I said.

  She measured my conclusion with a grin. “Very good, and thank you for being respectful with your language. I may be compelled to fuck, but rather prefer less colorful terms.” Her smile bloomed at my bark of laughter as I waved at her to go on. “I am intensely private and have been since the day my husband died and I realized that Elizabeth was going to replace his memories with . . . whatever followed that horrid day.” Her voice softened with loss. “I may be accessible physically, but my mind and my soul are my own, except on rare occasions where I find myself an unwitting participant in love or friendship, both of which are two sides of the same coin.”

  “Like now, with me? It’s only natural. You shouldn’t be ashamed of smothering under my avalanche of charm.” I punctuated that with a small belch brought on by the wine, and she laughed again.
/>   “Of course,” she agreed, “what woman could resist such a beguiling gentleman?”

  “Milady,” I replied, tipping an imaginary cap.

  She laughed again with greater abandon, and I felt myself flush. She was insanely desirable and growing more so with each passing minute. Weakness began to crack my resolve, and she hadn’t even turned her attentions to me. Incandescent, I thought, looking at her and realizing that even before her conversion, she must have been a blinding sight among the island dwellers she had been born to.

  “I have wondered for some time—may I ask you something about your husband?” This question might help us learn to trust each other. Maybe,

  She said, “Go on.”

  “What was he like?” I asked.

  She lost focus for the briefest moment and smiled with real warmth as the memory of a man gone for twenty-four hundred years filled her eyes. It was voyeuristic, and I was compelled to look away. “He was many things, especially remarkable for our people, but behind his kindness and love of me and our children, he was clever. Decisive and fearless. His defense of our family, it was instantaneous, like quicksilver, even though he was a small, wiry man. He had curled hair that he wore back in a thong. My daughter would put flowers in it, and he would preen for her until she dissolved into shrieks of laughter. To see it, one would think him a prince rather than a man who regarded work as a reward for having such a bountiful life. He was relentless in his sense of fairness. You share many qualities with him, but you are afraid to be seen as too serious, unlike him. Why do you think that is?”

  “I’m flattered to share something with him; I think I would have liked him very much. I’m sorry for your loss. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that.” She inclined her head to me in thanks. “I deflect the uglier side of our lives with humor. I hope you don’t take that as a sign that I’m not serious about our threats. I am.”

  “No, not at all. I know you recognize the severity of your occupational hazards,” she said.

  “Good, I hope that comes through. I never thought that I would end up—” I began, only to have Delphine silence me with a gesture.

  “A murderer?” she asked. And when I simply nodded, she said, “And now you know how I feel, and have felt, for more than twenty-four centuries. That is one yoke that chafes no matter how much humor we apply.”

  “A killer, yes. I know what I am killing, but it doesn’t make it free from cost. There’s a residue that gets left behind, and sometimes it sickens me.”

  Her only answer was to pull me to her in an embrace that was somewhere between maternal and frightened.

  I lay against her, bent uncomfortably, and asked against her shoulder, “Delphine?”

  “Yes, Ring?”

  “If I don’t sit up, I may go numb and drool, and I’m going to save that for your magical floor, if you don’t mind,” I uttered to her laughter, as she released me and I straightened in relief but immediately missing the presence of her touch.

  “Before you shame yourself, don’t you want to know who the first victim of my castle defense was?” she asked, her laughter ending abruptly.

  “I do, but only if you want to share. I’m thankful that you have honored me with stories of your family,” I said, and I meant it.

  “It’s a my pleasure to speak seriously with someone while clothed for a change.” She gave me an outrageous wink and I flushed again. It was nearly impossible not to feel like her attention was a gift. “I—thank you, Ring. I was serious when I hoped that we would be friends at the very least and allies if at all possible.”

  “So far, that seems to be the path we’re on,” I conceded, but it cost me nothing to admit the obvious. Outside of her inescapable seduction, she had done nothing to deserve anything less than friendship, and I suspected she would prove to be a powerful resource. Warfare takes many forms, and Delphine was a proven survivor. That was a not a skill to be taken lightly.

  “Nonetheless, it isn’t unnoticed. Thank you. But to this man, this victim, so to speak, who was killed in defense of my bedchamber, and by extension, me—I will tell you who he was, but I will also explain why he was there at all because the idea to invade my home was hardly his own.”

  “Elizabeth?” I prompted.

  “Of course. It is always her hand in these dealings, especially when there is such cruelty, and yes, his death was incredibly cruel because it was utterly pointless. He was a wounded British officer, just another bit of flotsam from the war, and he was pointed at me like a weapon. His only intent was to demand that I give him passage home to England, but he ended up dead in my home.”

  I was confused. “Passage to England? What influence did you have over who could return home after the end of the War of 1812?”

  “None, and there is the first hint that Elizabeth was involved. Ring, never forget that, despite the convoluted nature of her plans, Elizabeth does not care about the results of her plans.”

  “Okay, then—what does she care about, if not her goals?”

  “Oh, she cares about her goals, but do not mistake her goals with something tangible, Ring. Elizabeth has plans that leave a uniquely pointless type of destruction behind. Her victories are measured in pain and agony. She creates hope for broken people and then burns it to the ground. It’s what she does well.”

  That seemed reasonable to me, if we were considering that the creator of these games was a creature who wanted to reign over hell. I shook my head in agreement thenDelphine took my hand and kissed it. I made to pull away but realized she was doing it to reassure me rather than seduce me further.

  “The point is, there is no point. The officer’s death was actually unremarkable in the larger scheme. He was weakened from his injuries and convalescence, and mad with drink, too, perhaps given to him by Elizabeth’s own hand. It would be like her to get enjoyment from that little detail. But before he died, I was able to discern that he was one of five or six men tasked specifically to pierce the sanctity of my home. They had been placed around the city, treated like favored pets, and I have no doubt that they all died or were forgotten, once Elizabeth had taken from them whatever it was she needed to mount that particular assault against me.” She took a deep drink of her wine and shuddered with the recollection.

  “I think I see the significance of that death. Is it the, what did you call them, pets? The others, sprinkled over the city? Were they in silken prisons?” I asked. Sometimes confinement can be comfortable, even opulent. The motivations for such trappings are almost always bad. A sedate prisoner is less likely to resist, and Elizabeth had the funds to make such accommodations a reality. It was a fancy slaughterhouse and nothing more. My disgust for Elizabeth’s shriveled heart redoubled.

  “Pets, indeed—they are lambs without purpose, other than their bleating pain as they were rendered inhuman under the hand of a demon. It’s a scene that is repeated again and again without mercy. In her letters she called them her angels, even waxing heretical and awarding them the title of Archangel about once a century. She has no shame and her theological shortcomings are equally as offensive.”

  I started upright. “Archangels? She used that exact term?”

  “Yes, I’m certain of it. She used it repeatedly, usually when she felt that she had me cornered into a life I was reluctant to leave. Like now,” she added, with a glance at me from under her lashes.

  Give me strength, I thought, drunk with her attention.

  “But what of it?” she asked, probing my inquiry.

  “It’s a martial term within this particular war for heaven, or hell. I have a friend, a priest, really, but he’s incredibly intuitive about these things, and he deems the term archangel as nothing short of a general, at least in military terms. But that begs the question, why would Elizabeth need generals?” I said, thinking aloud.

  “She doesn’t. And that dovetails perfectly with her previous forays into attacking me, and who knows else in the depths of time.” Delphine snapped her fingers to accent her conclusion.
“It’s for show, trappings, like a distraction, but Elizabeth’s pride has led her astray again since she is clearly technologically inept.”

  Delphine had a suspicion, and she voiced it. “If she has victims in holding, then there are records. This isn’t 1813. There are paper trails, net access, remote data recovery, all of which that bitch is blithely ignoring. I’m certain she’ll have her assistants, children, whomever, to do the dirty work, but they, too, will leave a trail, and we can follow it. We can find them, and if we find them, we find her.”

  I responded slowly, “What do we do if we catch her? We need to prepare for success, dearest. I don’t want to expose us to pure evil without an endgame.”

  She squeezed my hand again and said, “Your caution is warranted, but I have not lived this long without making plans of my own. You endeavor to find these so-called Archangels, and when you do, I will bring the last blade to bear on her cold, damnable neck.”

  “Blade?” I asked, for clarification.

  “Not all weapons are made of metal, Ring, and while you are an expert in many ways of fighting, I, too, have tools. I’m asking you to trust me, if not always, then at least this once.” She implored me with her eyes, and her hands, small and cool, were on either side of my face, which heated to the touch like a piece of the sun was in her palms.

  I agreed with a shake of my head, and she kissed me with satisfaction. I felt myself caught by her irrepressible sexuality and held her golden hair under my hands as she moved to my neck while she slid into my lap without resistance, mounting me playfully. I could feel her intense warmth taunting me through my jeans, and I slid a thumb upward, opening her like a flower. She slapped my hand away with urgency as she drove her soft hips downward on me while her hands busily looped my belt outward with a crack against the window.

  With a gentle sigh, she pushed down on me and I was inside her, and I lost my mind with each passing second.