Midnight Ruling (25 page)

Black, unblinking eyes bore into mine as if he might pluck them from my head.

“How?” I asked weakly. “Did I make that thing go away?”

His grip poked into every cut, stinging them.

“Did…did I wake up Joel?” The weight in the question haunted me long after I asked.

His lips tightened as if stifling rage. His fingers dug into my shoulders, and my body vibrated with emotional adrenaline.

“Did I?” I pressed.

“I have the authority to punish you for this,” he said through his teeth.

“Is that a rule?” I asked. The swell of adrenaline threatened to overwhelm me.

The instant his eyes flickered to his grip, he released me. My muscles relaxed a little, but I was still trapped with him.

He turned his back to me, and the muscles beneath his shirt twitched and shifted, reminding me of the powerful movements of the tiger we’d left behind.

“You woke him,” he confirmed.

I stared at his back, astounded. “But I didn’t. I didn’t
know
.”

“You did. You must have felt it. You’re not as
naïve
as you play yourself to be, Nora,” he said disparagingly. “It is you, not the Keeper’s grandson, with the power.”

Aidan?

“It was an accident,” I said, trying to sound compliant.

His stiffness as he turned away from me indicated he was still angry, and I didn’t want to incur a demon’s wrath. Pausing just a few steps away from me, he hesitated as if listening.

With his back turned, I dared to move enough to rub away the tear that snuck free.

My mind twirled at the questions, but Damien didn’t seem the least bit interested in answering.

Damien stood still, broad shoulders taut and raised, looking almost human.

“Damien, my friends are suspicious of me. You all seem to think that I’m able to do things that I thought…thought I couldn’t do.” I had to speak over the massive lump in my throat.

“You can,” he said. “Phoebe was dead.”

Everything inside me seized for several heartbeats. Staring at him, I shook my head. “She’s not dead.”

“No, she’s not completely. You’re welcome.”

“I don’t under…you brought her back? Like a zombie, like those things from before?”

“In a way,” he said. “It wasn’t all me.” Damien peered over his shoulder. “You remember the crystal in the atrium?”

Blinking I whispered, “The one that changed colors when we were leaving the Challenge.”

Turning to face me, the demon said, “It was the last clue that one of you was different. It was you who tampered with crystal bomb in the museum. Your concern over your friends, more specifically Phoebe, prevented her body from decaying. I brought her back to watch over your friends in your absence.”

“You could do that?”

“Only because you started it. The energy you expelled went straight to the one who’d fallen.”

I remembered Phoebe’s hands had gone numb. Her snake bite wasn’t healing anymore. “How?”

“In the beginning, the very first door. She failed the Challenge on her own. From there, she fought until she died.”

I tried not to think about how she died. She’d been alone in there. I don’t think I could have done any of this alone.

“And we brought her back. You and me.”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you could freeze her back there?”

“She belongs to the Demon’s Grave now.”

“Why bring her back at all?” Really, all I wanted to say was, “
Thank you
.”

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“She would prove useful in keeping you from the same fate that befell her. You would have never made it this far if it weren’t for those around you.”

I almost didn’t hear him as my brain attempted to catch up.

Twitching a nod, I tried not to step back as he pressed forward, moving within inches of me. I tried to focus on my socked feet, wiggling them and feeling the grit between my toes. Clearing my throat, I said, “So what does this mean?”

He caught my chin in his fingers, and I had the urge to jerk away but felt the steely, unrelenting grip warn against it.

His hand was chilled but not cold as I reluctantly rolled my eyes to meet his. My heart thundered, and my knees grew weak as the idea began to swirl inside my head.

I found myself locked in the obsidian gaze, my nose almost touching his. I wanted to say something to wipe the intensity that swelled like an oncoming tsunami, but I was at a loss for words.

“You, Nora Fuller, are of demonic blood.”

I don’t know what made me do it, but before I could fully process what he’d said, I started to smile.

The fear snapped like guitar strings with a
twang
.

The smile slipped Damien’s fingers free. I suppose he could have prevented it. His hand still poised as if he were gripping my face; it was only his eyes that moved.

The gargling laugh escaped in a hiccup, and I slapped a hand over my mouth. The absurdity of the sound charged the hysterics that lingered on the edge of that single laugh.

The tears in my eyes weren’t from laughing, and the heave of breath was almost a choking sob, but I was laughing anyway.

Demon blood.
Holy crap, I must be dreaming. Or insane. That would be the more likely.

“That’s why I popped back into the tower.” I giggled, clutching my stomach. In the first Challenge, I woke up in the tower away from my friends. Could I pop in and out like that? I could have escaped that whole time?

Damien just watched me.

“In the last Challenge.” I almost choked myself on the next wave.

Oh, this was too funny.
This was rich!

Clutching my stomach, I emitted a partial laugh/sob. The crude sound confused even me.

Demon blood. Of course that would make sense.

Knees buckling, I wheezed, giggled, and teetered on my feet.

Who the fuck would have carried that gene? The thought was as dangerously furious as it was hilarious. Could it have been my mom? Maybe my dad? The thought made me laugh even harder. There were points in my youth I might have believed it, though for purely selfish reasons.

Attempting to right myself, I slapped my hands over my mouth. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, and I wasn’t sure if they were out of hilarity or a sense of damnation.

Wiping them away from my eyes, I saw Damien’s sardonic smirk.

Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I sniffled. The edge of the hysteria was a bubble in my throat, ready to burst.

“I hope you don’t expect me to believe you.”

“I hope for nothing. It’s the truth.”

“I’m still human. I could never be like you.”

Damien’s eyes narrowed. “Human is part of the requirements for an Erebus.”

“You’re human.” I motioned to him, unconvinced.

“Part.”

Now it was my turn to narrow my eyes. “How much?”

He canted his head.

“How much of you is human?”

“Quarter. My mother was half.”

To picture Damien having a mother drained the humor. “You’re kidding.”

“I am not.”

“Who was she? Was she here once?”

“An Erebus?”

“Yeah…”

“No, this is my burden for my mistakes. The Demon’s Grave is meant for those with demonic blood. We can manipulate it because demons are far more diverse than other species.”

“I’m not like you.” I felt the hysteria subside. The laughter held back only one thing—the fear. Primal, shattering fear. My world rocked, and within it, I found the girl I once knew. She was an imposter.

“I never said you were like me,” Damien cajoled. “I said you had demonic blood.”

I paused, weighing those words’ worth and trying to squash the delirium that wrung my guts.

“I can’t. That would mean I have a relative that.”

“Your grandmother unwittingly gave birth to a half demon, half human,” he interrupted.

“Unwittingly?” My voice squeaked. It was as if a giant hand wrapped me up and began to squeeze. I thought of Aunt Nell and asked, hearing the quiver in my voice, “So my dad?”

He tilted his head to the side and sighed heavily. “I didn’t bring you here to discuss your family dynamics. I brought you here because you cheated.”

“No.” I raised my hands to stop him. “Answer me. My dad is a half demon?”

The man who stayed out late. The man who supported us though he was always absent. What was he doing outside of our family? What if he was evil and none of us knew? I remembered Mom accusing him of cheating. How many times? What else had he done?

“No,” Damien said slowly to distract me from my thoughts. He waited until I looked at him before continuing. “The child produced from the union was a girl.”

If I had demon blood then that would mean…I stopped breathing and clutched my shirt over my chest in a fist.

He was lying; he had to be. He was trying to make me believe this because it was part of his
stupid
Challenge!

I knew my question would be answered in the negative, but I asked it anyway. “Is it my mom?”

“Naturally,” he answered and bridged the gap between us. “Nora, look at me.”

“No!” I stared at the empty darkness to my left instead. It was easier to imagine than to see someone—even Damien in front of me. Somehow it created an illusion that this wasn’t real.

“No, I mean is it Wendy Fuller who’s half demon?” Licking my lips, I knew he was closer, but I didn’t dare look at anything but the darkness. “Please don’t say it’s Nell.”

My stomach twisted and churned.

“Look at me,” Damien said.

I realized it was harder to breathe. Pressing my fist to my chest, I doubled over in case I might puke. Rolling my eyes up, I asked huskily, the darkness in my own voice frightening, “Was it Eleanor Fuller?”

Damien blinked slowly. He didn’t need to answer.

My entire body shook from the inside out.

My parents were my parents; I wasn’t the product of that crazy woman locked in the insane asylum.

In the first Challenge, when the spiders and scorpions were all over Aidan and me, I had wished them away.
Poof,
they were gone. When I wanted Joel to wake up and the Freeze-Tag Monster to go away…the crystals and the strange warmth I always felt in my belly. It was only here that I felt that power surge.

Power
… the word hung in my head suspended and frozen.

Hugging myself to stop the quivering, I asked numbly, “What
is
a demon?”

“What did you imagine one to be?”

“Well, you look nothing like one,” I said, straightening. The shuddering within quieted as I allowed everything to settle into place. Babbling seemed to stop the thoughts. “And I’d assume that my grandma wouldn’t have…you know with a regular-looking demon.” I touched my forehead with the heel of my palm. “I can’t believe I’m thinking about this.”

“How are we supposed to look?” Damien inquired, a single eyebrow rising. “You never questioned my credibility before now.”

“Well, in our world, a demon looks different, and you look…” I didn’t dare give him a compliment. He was beautiful, but it seemed too feminine a word, and he was much more than just handsome. Too perfect to be considered human but I wasn’t going to say it out loud. “You look like a person,” I concluded.

“Of course,” he said as if it weren’t a peculiar idea. “What do your demons look like?” At least now he sounded amused rather than angry.

In that moment, I wished for a drink, something stiff, something to make me heady and irregular. I didn’t drink much, but I’d be damned if I didn’t want one now.

Running my tongue over my teeth, I decided to indulge Damien. “Well in the pictures, demons have claws for hands and horns on their heads.”

Damien began to chuckle and brought his normal five-fingered hands up for me to see. “What else?”

“A spiked tail and goat hooves for feet sometimes.”

“You’re making this up.”

I shook my head and couldn’t conceive why he’d think I was lying to him, unless he was teasing me. “No.” I eyed him incredulously. “That’s the generalized idea of a demon. Sometimes they’re covered in fur or their skin is all red.”

At this, Damien tilted his head back and barked a laugh that nearly had me jump out of my skin. “I suppose this is all possible. Thousands of years ago, it wasn’t restrictive to allow creatures from other worlds, including demons, into your realm.”

“You mean that these pictures aren’t demons?”

“More than likely, they are. Demons are mixed blood. Those of different species if they breed and can produce offspring will create what we call a hybrid. If a hybrid were to mix with another hybrid, for example, they produce a demon. Demons are unpredictable and can take many shapes depending on their parentage.”

Part of me couldn’t believe that this made sense. “What kind of species?”

Damien waved me off as if it weren’t important. “You cheated,” he reaffirmed.

“Unintentionally,” I argued, feeling braver. This man and I were on more even ground somehow. I was certain I still couldn’t take him on in an arm wrestle of power, but I had it.

I took a step forward, a move so bold that even Damien appeared on his guard. “I didn’t know I could manipulate the Demon’s Grave. How could I?” Taking another daring step forward, I said, “You can’t punish me for something I have little control over.”

He tilted his head, breaking eye contact first. “Yes I can. There will be further restrictions. Next time you try to manipulate my Challenge, I will be watching. I can put a stop to your influence.”

He stepped up to me, his face next to mine and his body so close I felt a shiver of anticipation.

Being so close to another human, I’d feel body heat, but not off of him. He wasn’t cold, warm or anything. It was only my eyes that told me he was there. His acidic words came next. “I am the Erebus here. Remember that.”

I nodded. “How can I stop myself from influencing?”

“I will help prevent it,” he assured. “But if you force it, there won’t be mercy.”

I wondered if I could force it. Could I actually overpower him if I could figure out how to force it? I found myself watching him, gauging him while he did the same to me. This was why he was always staring; he was sizing me up. If I could be something that stayed here, I could be a rival. An equal.