Darkness Taunts (17 page)

“They’re bringing more demons in from the other side.” I gripped his arm. “Oh, my God. They are jumping into whatever body crosses inside the circle.” Which was mostly police and firefighters, assuming everyone else had cleared out.

“We need to get you out of here.” He forced me into the car.

I tried to climb back out. “No, we have to stop it. I can break it if you help me get inside.”

My senses picked up that he was communicating with his brother.

“No,” he said. “Lucas wants you out of here now.”

He stuffed my legs inside and slammed the door. I reached for the handle.

“Melena,” he slapped the window, “we are leaving even if I have to use that Kerlix to tie you up.”

I glared at him. “Fine, but I’m sensing at least half a dozen of them in there. It’ll just be that many more to track down.”

“Then we’ll find them later.” He climbed into the passenger seat. “For now we are meeting Fallon and getting you healed.”

The drawing I’d made of the circle didn’t survive. I hadn’t closed the sketchpad in my rush to stuff it inside my backpack the day before. The bag had gotten too doused to protect it. Everything on the page looked like a blur after the paper dried. It took over an hour of arguing with Lucas before he agreed to let me go back to the mall to sketch it again. After I finished, I was supposed to destroy the circle with my blood. That was the only reason he’d gone along the plan. He wanted it gone too.

I went by myself, but only because it was noon and demons wouldn’t be out yet. Plus Lucas and Micah had other things to do that they wouldn’t talk about. That worked fine for me. I’d worried the mall might not be open, but only the craft store remained closed. The trash cans had been replaced, but other than that I didn’t see any other signs of damage in the main corridor. I’d checked before moving to the other end where the circle lay to start my drawing.

I’d just started retracing the design—once again dormant—when Felisha called.

“Melena, we met last night,” she said without preamble.

I started drawing the first symbol. “Who arrived?”

“Yarrow, the man my family wants me to marry.”

“Oh, how did that go?” I’d forgotten all about it. Here she was watching Emily for me and I hadn’t even spared Felisha a thought since arriving in Juneau.

“It’s horrible, Mel. He’s too nice and polite. The men of my race are never this good. It’s going to be that much harder to put him off.”

Why couldn’t I have that problem with the men in my life? Matt had been nice, but he’d been killed before I’d had a chance to get to know him better. I still felt guilty over that. He’d died trying to help me and suffered for it. Every other man who claimed they were protecting me had ulterior motives. Plus they tended to be jackasses.

“Wouldn’t you want someone good and nice?” I asked.

“Yes…no…I don’t know. I’m not ready for this.” She let out a frustrated sigh.

I sketched out the next symbol. “Then tell him that. If he’s really so nice then he won’t push you into something you don’t want to do.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” she said. “His family is pressuring him, too. My sister told me if he doesn’t mate with me they may cut him off.”

“You have a sister?” I’d always pictured her as an only child.

“I have two sisters and three brothers. All of them except my youngest brother live in The City.”

When she said
The City
, she meant one of the secret fae reservations designed millennia ago as a refuge from the mortals. I’d never seen one, but rumor had it they were beautiful and ran primarily by magic.

“So how did you talk to this sister, anyway? Do they actually have phones there?”

“No,” she answered carefully, “we have other ways we communicate.”

She wasn’t going to tell me what those were. I could read between the lines. We were friends, but she didn’t trust me with that kind of information. Fae were notorious for being secretive. I was lucky she told me as much as she did.

“It seems many siblings have unusual ways to communicate,” I grumbled. “Did you know Lucas has a twin brother?”

“What? There’s two of him?” She made a sympathetic noise. “Considering how you get along with Lucas, I can only imagine how miserable you are right now.”

“I’m taking Motrin every day to keep the headaches down. For some reason they are both determined to be overprotective of me while still pushing me to get this job done. It’s frustrating.”

“Hmmm, I don’t know what to tell you on that one. Lucas has always acted strange around you. I’d still find him easier to put off than Yarrow, though.”

“Yeah, well, hang in there,” I said. “How is Emily doing?”

“Oh, she’s doing fine. We went shopping yesterday with the pre-paid Visa card Lucas gave her.”

I dropped my pencil. “What Visa card?”

“He didn’t tell you? Emily didn’t want him taking you away, but he offered her a thousand dollar Visa card and swore he’d protect you. That was enough for her to give in.”

“That asshole bribed my kid!”

“Language, Melena. She got new make-up and clothes she needed anyway. Does it really hurt anything?”

What hurt was that I wasn’t the one to buy those things for her. I’d been scrimping and saving to take her on a shopping trip before summer. She wouldn’t have gotten a thousand dollars worth of stuff, but she could have picked up a few nice things.

Now Lucas went behind my back. I wanted Emily to be happy, but didn’t know how to handle someone else interfering. Was it worth my pride to make her go without the things she wanted? I couldn’t make her take it all back. That would just make me look like the bad guy.

“Okay, fine.” I rubbed my face. “I’ll let it go this time, but don’t tell her you told me. That way I can at least pretend I didn’t know about it.”

She laughed. “Maybe there is hope for that stubbornness of yours yet.”

“Don’t count on it,” I muttered.

We chatted for a few more minutes before hanging up. I started working on the next symbol around the circle when my senses lit up. Not a demon this time, but something far more unexpected.

It had never occurred to me another sensor might be in the city. He must not have noticed me yet because he moved along the nearby highway at a sedate pace until he got closer. Then his speed picked up and he made straight for me. I closed the sketchpad and put it in my backpack between two books.

Moments later he entered the mall parking lot. I had no doubt sensing me on his own radar had him moving fast. In all my travels I’d never ran into any men like me. Would he be any different? Should I text Lucas and tell him? No, the nephilim would probably kill him the moment he found out. I had to pray he wouldn’t check in on me until I could get rid of the guy. He was already entering the mall. There would be no running off to avoid him now.

Down the hall a young man appeared. He had shaggy brown hair and looked to be in his early twenties. As he came closer I could see he had the same blue eyes as the other two sensors I’d known—the one thing we all had in common regardless of ethnicity. He didn’t have a very large build, though the heavy jacket he wore made him look bigger.

Our gazes met after he moved around an older couple who’d blocked his way. A look of excitement filled his eyes. I wanted to feel the same, but something held me back. This wasn’t the best time to meeting others of my kind. Fear of what Lucas might do if he found out kept me reserved. I’d play it nice and get rid of him before anything bad could happen.

He sat down next to me on the bench. “I hadn’t expected to find you here,” he said, looking me over. “I’m Elden.”

“Melena,” I said, shaking his hand and looking him over just as thoroughly. Two could play that game.

“Do you live here?” he asked.

“In the mall?” I raised my brows. “No.”

He rolled his eyes. “I meant here in Juneau.”

How to answer that? I wasn’t ready to give too much information away, but I couldn’t lie to him either. “I just relocated here recently.”

“Any particular reason you’re sitting here?” he asked and nodded at the circle. Of course he could see and feel it too.

I shrugged. “It has me curious. I’ve never seen anything like it until I saw this one.”

He didn’t need to know I knew what it did yet. I wanted to test the waters. Plus there could be a lot more to it than what I’d discovered.

“You haven’t had much training, have you?”

He didn’t ask it in a condescending way. More like a statement of fact. Maybe I could learn a few things from him while he was here.

“I had a mentor,” I said, “but a sup killed her before she could finish teaching me everything. Do you know what this is?” I pointed at the circle.

Elden kept his eyes averted. “I have a pretty good idea.”

He’d just told a half-truth and he knew it. Either he knew exactly what it was or didn’t know much about it at all. “Then what is it?” I asked.

“The best thing for you to do is stay away from it until me and the other guys can get rid of it.”

My jaw dropped. “There are more of you?”

He nodded. “Five of us came up to handle this. It’s what we do. Kill off supernatural threats wherever we find them.”

So there was still a group of my kind out there doing the job of our ancestors. I’d always thought we were all in hiding. “Why is it I’ve never run into you all before? I’ve traveled a lot and never sensed any of you.”

“We’re based in Idaho and only leave when we have a mission. Ever been there?”

“Um, no. Never had a reason to visit.”

“My leader would be very interested in meeting you,” he said. “Maybe we could work it out. This city isn’t a safe place for us, but there’s protection in numbers. Plus we could use another woman in our group.”

I had to admit it sounded tempting. Maybe with their help I could keep Lucas away, but my instincts told me to play it cautious. Just because he was from my race didn’t make him trustworthy. I’d have to tread carefully. “How about you give me your number and I’ll give you a call soon?” I suggested.

“Got a pen and paper?” he asked.

I grabbed both from the side pocket of my backpack. He took them and jotted a number down with an area code I didn’t recognize. Definitely not Alaska. I’d check it out online later. “Don’t wait too long. We don’t plan to be here more than a couple of weeks if all goes according to plan.”

“What plan is that? How will you get rid of the demons?” I asked.

He squeezed my shoulder. “We have our ways. Call and maybe you’ll get a chance to find out.”

I put the notebook back in my pack. It might come in handy. This guy’s group had to know more than me about how to stop the demon infestation. “Maybe I will.”

“Good. I’ll be expecting it.” He stood up. “In the meantime, stay away from the circle. It’s too dangerous for the inexperienced to mess with.”

I kept myself in check from making a sarcastic reply…barely. It couldn’t be that hard to disable, but maybe he knew something I didn’t. I’d broken some magic spells in the past without realizing the consequences until too late.

“You take care too,” I said.

He nodded and walked away. I saw he got on his cell phone before getting out of my sight. Time to get the heck out of here. I’d have to leave it up to them to break the circle. There was no point in pissing them off before I even got to know them.

Lucas and I were spending an awkward day riding in his car to see if my senses could pick anything up while on the road. Neither of us talked except when necessary. I’d put on headphones to try and drown out his presence, but the tension grew. No matter how beautiful the area around Juneau was, it could only hold my attention for so long with an irritated nephilim by my side. He wasn’t masking his emotions as much as he normally did.

I set the iPod aside. “Why don’t we fly over the city and you can use your ‘look away’ ability?” I asked. “That would be so much easier than driving.”

He grunted. “Nephilim can’t fly.”

“What do you mean they can’t? If vampires can fly, shouldn’t they have inherited that ability from your kind?” The first vamp had been born from a nephilim couple—despite the infertility issues of their race. Lucas had told me that much during one of his rare moments of sharing information.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “For one, witchcraft was involved to make that birth possible. It warped their genetics in ways no one expected. For two, contrary to your beliefs, there are some things even I don’t understand…or bother to try.”

“Well, that’s disappointing.”

He let out a snort. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

I looked away. “No, you’re never sorry for much of anything.”

He remained quiet. Probably just as well he couldn’t fly. Spending hours with him holding me in his arms while soaring over the city would drive us to the edge. We’d either kill each other or end up doing something we’d both regret later.

“So where are we headed next?” I asked.

We’d combed through Mendenhall Valley, but all I’d picked up was less than a dozen sups. Six months ago, that many would have given me a headache. Now it didn’t even faze me. I could sense twice that number in Fairbanks for an equally populated area. Juneau had more sups than an average city this size, but not by a lot. I estimated about a hundred and fifty or so lived here.

“We’re going back to check downtown again,” Lucas replied. “It’s almost dusk. The demons should be coming out now.”

We’d started our drive early in the day hoping to catch demons in their homes, but it wasn’t easy with my range so short with them. Something had to give, though. There had been two more attacks—one at a restaurant and another at the alpha werewolf’s house. Bryan hadn’t taken the extra step of protecting his home with the salt. I’d assumed he would have thought of that. It almost cost him his wife and two kids.

For reasons we’d yet to determine, the demons wanted to take him down. It couldn’t have been a coincidence both his house and business were hit. Luckily for him and his family, half a dozen of his pack members were there for a meeting and helped him fend off the four demons who showed up. Only one had been left alive for us to interrogate, but Lucas kept me on the sidelines again. He still didn’t trust me to handle them on my own.