Devil Take Me (18 page)

Run! Hurry, you’ve got to run.

Yes, she had to run, had to escape Samyaza and find Namtar and—

“Run, Annie!” It was Namtar. Annie forced her eyes open and rolled onto her back. Namtar had Samyaza by the throat, but the Grigori fought furiously. He would free himself soon.

“No!” Annie scrambled to her feet as Samyaza wheeled on Namtar, knocking his hands away and slamming him with a blast of golden light.

“Run! Keep safe, I will find you.” Namtar’s voice was strained, but the Grigori’s magic didn’t seem to be affecting him as it had the night before. He was stronger. Their soul bonding had given him the power he needed to defeat Samyaza. She was fairly sure of it as she watched the two men grapple, spinning round and round in the patchy forest light. But fairly sure wasn’t sure enough for her to obey Namtar and run. She had to be certain he would win this fight.

Annie reached out with her magic, pulling from the darklings who were close enough to the battle to give aid. They had followed her from her aunt’s house she realized now, but with their tiny legs it was taking time for them to catch up. Still, she felt Titurus no more than fifty feet away, felt the soft thrum of power that marked a few of the older darklings and the rapidly beatings hearts of several of the youngest demons. She tugged at their energy, praying it would be enough, and flung it straight toward Samyaza.

The Grigori screamed as the blood began to flow from his wounds, pouring onto the forest floor, wetting down the brown dirt and turning it black. His cries grew louder and louder, no longer wordless screaming, but some sort of guttural chant, a language unlike anything Annie had ever heard, but which seemed to vibrate through the marrow of her bones.

Her mind might not know what the words meant, but her body did, her magic did. Before she could obey the instinctive urge to pull her metaphysical touch away from the golden man, his chant hit its crescendo.

Her power was snuffed out like a candle, slammed back into her body, tamped down into her cells until she felt she would explode. She was too full, her skin too small to contain her magic. Now that it had known freedom, it rebelled against being forced back into captivity, fighting and clawing, making Annie fall to the ground, screaming.

She rolled through the dirt, desperate to put out this new fire, this blaze that burned from within her, as horrible as the golden power had been a few moments before. Seconds stretched into unbearable minutes, then, just as the agony began to fade, she was seized by large, strong hands. Brutal hands.

Annie kicked and fought, certain Samyaza had somehow managed to wound Namtar and come for her, until she heard the mumbling. It was a dim awareness at first, just the realization that a man was speaking. He was saying something, something familiar…but not sufficiently so to make her stop struggling, until finally, her eyes regained the ability to focus.

The stranger in the blue uniform was squatted several feet away, a cold, dispassionate look on his face that assured Annie she was the lowest thing he’d seen in a long while. His mouth was moving, but it took a little longer before the meaning of the words penetrated her consciousness. “…if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.”

“Hold her, don’t let go, she might start again,” another male voice from behind her ordered. She was on her stomach in the dirt again with what felt like two or three large men holding her down.

“Please…please,” Annie whispered, her throat raw and sore from screaming.

“Do you understand these rights as they have been presented to you? With these rights in mind do you wish to speak to me?” She was being cuffed as the man spoke, the hard metal clamping down around her wrists.

“I-Please I don’t understand.” Her voice was barely audible, she was so hoarse, so thirsty.

“Too fucked up to—”

“Quiet, Jensen.” The same voice from before, the older man behind her, the one who seemed to be in charge.

“I’m not on drugs, please. My friend was in trouble. He was being attacked and—” She was wrenched to her feet with a roughness that made her shoulders scream in protest, but it was the sight before her that stole her words away. The trail ahead was empty.

Namtar and Samyaza were gone.

Erbil, Iraq

November 30th, present day

Annie sat at one of the red plastic tables at the ex-pat bar, Americana, sipping a glass of the house red, watching the city streets surge with life as people finished up their work for the day and went out looking for a little fun. It wasn’t a bad glass of wine, especially considering the bar itself seemed to be the only thing on the street that hadn’t just undergone extensive renovations. The smooth fruity taste with an overtone of oak was a pleasant surprise.

So far, all of northern Iraq had been a pleasant surprise. The primarily Kurdish region showed few signs of the wars that had decimated the south, which was the only reason she’d been able to finally find a flight there from Vienna. Few European nations had resumed their usual routes to Iraq and the United States airlines weren’t running any commercial flights to this part of the Middle East. Despite the fact that the region was home to some of the most ancient archeological sites in the world, tourism was the furthest thing from most American’s minds when they thought of this particular country.

She’d had a hell of a time finding flights and hotel accommodations even here, in the relatively metropolitan area of Erbil. Her attempts to begin her journey farther south, closer to the original Mesopotamia, had been completely unsuccessful. If she didn’t find what she was looking for in Erbil, she was going to have to rent a car and drive herself south. In a country that was still dangerous for foreigners, she’d be taking her life in her hands.

The thought didn’t bother her. Nothing bothered her these days except that one burning need, the need to find him, to know for certain he had chosen not to return for her of his own free will.

Namtar. Just thinking of him was enough to make her body ache, make her heart squeeze painfully in her chest and a metallic taste rise in the back of her mouth. She could still see his face when she closed her eyes, feel his large hands warm on her hips, smoothing up to her waist and—

“Can I get you anything else?” Annie’s eyes flew open. It was the bartender.

He was also the waiter. He was a handsome man, not over forty, with a greying beard that leant him a distinguished air despite his long-sleeved Grateful Dead T-shirt and threadbare jeans. His smile had been just a shade too friendly ever since she sat down half an hour ago, but Annie hadn’t even noticed at first. Since Namtar had gone, she’d been hit on more than the rest of her life combined. Their time together had apparently made her irresistible to the male population, now that she wanted nothing to do with any mortal man.

“No, I’m fi—”

“I think Petereus would like another milk.” Titurus crouched on the plastic chair across from hers and Petey lay snuggled by her feet—wrapped in her scarf since he was finding temperatures in the high fifties to be unbearably cold—but she knew the bartender couldn’t see them.

The darklings were invisible to people without Annunaki blood. She’d learned that the hard way. At the beginning of last August, she’d seen the inside of both a prison and a mental institution long enough to know she never wanted to return to either, ever again.

“I’ll have another milk and a bowl of peanuts.” Titurus’s bowl was empty, but he was too mannerly to ask for anything for himself. He was a gem.

He’d helped her stay sane since that day in the woods, sitting with her in the police car, staying by her side through every trial. He was a friend, in many ways like the father she never knew. A short, squat, demon-looking father, but a father nonetheless.

“Not another wine? It’ll be on the house.” The bartender’s grey eyes were hopeful, but respectful. He seemed like a nice man. At one time she would have been flattered.

“No, just the milk and the nuts please.” Annie smiled, but nothing that could be interpreted the wrong way, then folded her sweater-covered arms across her chest and turned her attention back to the street until the bartender walked away.

She didn’t have time to waste deflecting unwanted attention. It had been four months. Too long if Namtar had been taken captive. He could be dead, or worse. Titurus had told her of the queen’s love for dramatic torture. The stories had solidified Annie’s opinion that the woman had to die. She’d kill Ereshkigal herself if she got the chance.

Contemplating murder no longer bothered her. She’d become a different person in the past few months, even more so than she’d been after the few days she’d had with Namtar. A couple of weeks in one of California’s state run mental institutions and another three weeks in jail before her lawyer could arrange bail had hardened her. Wearing an electronic monitoring device and being confined to her home for another month and a half while Roger did his best to kill her and she feared every day brought Samyaza closer to finding her had turned her will to stone.

She’d allowed Titurus to acquire a gun for her protection and when she was free to leave her home—once the evidence began to mount against Roger and Carla and the charges against her had been dropped—she’d learned how to use it. But even after losing her job and knowing Samyaza might find a way to trace her to Santa Clarita, Annie had stayed in the condo. That was where Namtar had emerged the first time. She wasn’t crazy, she had the hole in the floor of her garage to prove it, though the lower portions of the portal had closed once he’d made his way through. Still, she kept praying he would find his way to her again if she just stayed put.

Titurus and Petey had agreed. Titurus even sent the rest of the darklings back to the Underworld hoping to gain news of Namtar, but no reports had made it back. He and Petey had then tried their own weak magic on the portal beneath her condo, but with no success. Without Annie’s power to feed them, they weren’t capable of more than basic demon spells. At first, it had made her wonder why they stayed with her at all, but over time she’d come to understand their unique position.

The Sariesians were the lowest of the low in the Underworld. They had nothing to lose by staying with Annie, and everything to gain. If there was a chance, no matter how small, that Namtar would triumph and return for her to make her his queen, hopefully reawakening the power Samyaza had somehow snuffed out, they would be highly rewarded.

She also liked to think that they liked her as much as she liked them, but whether they were her friends for purely selfish reasons or not didn’t matter. They were the only friends she had, and the only remaining connection to Namtar. As such, she valued them highly.

The bartender returned with the milk and nuts. Annie waited a few moments before passing the glass of milk under the tablecloth into two eager little hands.

“Thank you, Nannie. I am so thirsty.” Petey snuggled closer to her feet and began to guzzle his milk.

“I should leave you soon. The sun has nearly set and it will be possible to see if there are any of the ancient portals still remaining in this city.” Titurus reached for his nuts, shoveling them quickly into his mouth to avoid alarming anyone who might glance at their table and wonder how the morsels were spiriting themselves from the bowl. “Will you be all right, alone with Petereus?”

“Of course. Petey and I have a great time when you’re gone. We get to watch cartoons.” Titurus gave the closest expression he had to a smile. “Do you have your room key?” Annie asked quietly, speaking around the rim of her wine glass. She’d become adept at speaking to her invisible friends without alerting the sane portion of the population.

“I do.” Titurus grabbed a few more handfuls of nuts and chewed with obvious relish.

The darklings were hungry all the time these days, needing food to keep their bodies warmed to demon temperature and their magic from fading completely. They couldn’t last much longer above the Earth without Annie’s power to feed them. They had to find one of the original portals to the Underworld, one that the ancient mothers of the first nephilim had used to travel down to see Ereshkigal.

“Do you think you’ll find one?” Annie asked, unable to contain her curiosity. Titurus hadn’t said a word about their mission since they left the plane late the night before. Annie hadn’t pressed him, knowing she needed some rest before she learned their mission here could quite possibly be in vain. After twenty-seven hours in the air and even more spent traveling, she’d just needed to sleep for about ten hours.

“The energy here is much thicker than in California. Many gods have been worshipped here, many humans have lost their lives to appease the more bloodthirsty of them.”

“And what does that mean exactly?” Titurus was always assuming she understood more than she did, even after she’d confessed her complete idiocy to him not long after she was taken into police custody.

“It clouds my perception. I cannot be sure if what I feel is the call of the Underworld, and if so, which Underworld it might be. Once I scout the city for auras in the darkness, it will be easier to narrow our search.” He hopped from his chair, wiped his mouth delicately on the edge of the tablecloth and walked away.

Demons never said good-bye, she’d learned. She wondered if death gods from the Underworld were any different.

Titurus had said there was no great disturbance in the energy flowing from the Underworld in the past months. That meant the queen still lived, and Namtar did as well. If either had been killed, there would have been a decrease in the flow of power. Titurus would have known, even Petey would have known.

So that meant Namtar was being kept prisoner or that he’d decided he didn’t require a human consort after all. Maybe his loving words had been only that, words, not real feelings, not—

“Shit!” Annie gripped her wineglass as the ground trembled, sending the salt and pepper shakers tumbling off a nearby table. “What the hell was—”

“Don’t worry, it’s just the Earth letting off a little steam. We’re located over a fault line, and been having some tremors this fall.” The bartender was suddenly there, hand on her shoulder, pouring some more wine into her glass. “It’s nothing to be concerned about. The seismologists actually say it’s a good thing. Better to release the tension a little bit at a time than all at once in one big earthquake.”

“Thanks… I appreciate the information.” Annie shifted in her chair, sliding out from beneath the man’s touch, trying not to shudder with disgust.

She couldn’t stand for anyone to touch her, not since the day Namtar had disappeared. It felt like she would explode whenever any average human came into contact with her skin. Petey was the only living thing she could bear to feel against her without wanting to claw her flesh off.

Titurus said it was a side effect of whatever spell Samyaza had cast upon her to block her magic from leaving her body. Annie suspected it was a side effect of being without Namtar. She supposed it didn’t matter much either way.

“No problem.” He smiled, but it was awkward now. He’d noticed her revulsion. Annie felt a little bad, not nearly the way she would have before, but enough remorse to make her try harder to smile back. “I figured you were new to the area and might be worried. Don’t worry about the check, the first visit is always on the house.”

“No, please, I insist on paying. How much do I—”

“Nothing. I won’t take a dinar” He backed away, shaking his head. “Enjoy your visit in Erbil, hope to see you again.”

Annie stood and grabbed her purse, intent on leaving a generous tip, no matter what the man said, when Petey suddenly spoke from beneath the table.

“That’s not an earthquake, that’s a fight I bet.”

“A fight? What kind of fight?”

“The ground always trembles when there are ancients in the ring. The bigger the big guys, the more the trembling.” The little demon scrambled up into the chair she’d just vacated, staring up at her with wide eyes. “They must have been fighting for a long time now.”

“Who Petey? Who do you think is fighting?” Annie asked, wanting to hear him say the words, though she’d already leapt to her own conclusions.

“Namtar and the queen, I bet. If it was the wingy one, someone would have won by now.”

“Come on, let’s go see if we can catch Titurus. He should know about this.” Annie flung a few American bills on the table, knowing they would be eagerly accepted by someone, and scooped Petey into her purse. It was actually a basic black diaper bag, one that had room for her wallet and keys and the small demon. Thankfully diaper bags had evolved to the point no one gave her strange looks for carrying a bag but no baby.

“He’s gone Nannie, I can’t feel him anywhere, but…” Petey trailed off swiping at his nose nervously with the handkerchief she always kept in her purse. Adore the little creature or not, she’d gotten tired of having orange snot smeared across her skin and everything else he came into contact with.

“But what?” Annie stopped in the middle of the street. “Dammit!”

Several people passing by shot her strange looks, but she was almost used to it by now. Despite her dark hair and eyes, she was clearly a foreigner here. Her clothes alone drew great attention, her deep purple sweater brighter than anything she’d seen anyone else wearing. Everyone was staring at her anyway, she might as well cuss in public. Maybe she’d even take up smoking. She’d heard it was illegal for women to smoke anywhere but in the privacy of their own homes, and the part of her that had wanted to start a feminist movement in the Underworld was riled by the idea.

“I don’t know if I should tell you, Titurus might be—”