Personal Demon (25 page)

“Are you lost, little girl?” the vampire suddenly walking beside her asked.

There was nothing fake about Ivy’s startled jump. Her genuine squeak of surprise embarrassed her, but it amused the vampire beside her. She bet it amused Christopher, too.

The strig put his hand on her arm and turned her to face him. She got a good look at his normal features for a moment. Good-looking guy. Their gazes met, then the magic happened. The shift was mostly hypnotic, but there was some physical shifting in his looks as well. His eyes softened, took on an intense glitter. His skin became smoother, his lips fuller, sexy. He exuded pheromone perfume. This was the beautiful, irresistible lover’s mask, the seductive face vampires showed their sexual prey.

Christopher had never tried that trick on her.

“My boyfriend’s kind of ugly,” she told the strig. “I like him that way.”

H
appy to hear it,” Christopher said as he grabbed the strig by the scruff of the neck.

The other vampire pulled away, changed into fanged and clawed hunter form. He leapt at Christopher, snarling and snapping.

“Didn’t say I was talking about you,” Ivy said. She quickly stepped back out of the way.

C
hristopher concentrated on the strig. He could have killed this pup already, just jumped on him and ripped his heart out, but a fight was better. Inflict a little pain for the hell of it—and mostly because this piece-of-scum pimp had dared turn his attention on Ivy.

“If you hadn’t taken the bait, you might not have to suffer,” he told the strig.

Christopher dodged raking claws, let the strig jump back and move in for another attempted strike.

Who the hell are you? What are you doing on my street? I saw the bitch first.

Christopher raked his own claws across the strig’s face.
Language.

He touched the tip of his tongue to his claws’ bloodied tips. Energy instantly lessened his pain. Lovely, lovely vampire blood.

Christopher backed the vampire up against a wall. By now the strig was terrified. Christopher hadn’t changed to Nighthawk mask, but the renegade vampire recognized what he was.

Christopher settled one big hand around the strig’s throat. He pressed his other hand on the strig’s chest, claws pricking flesh over his heart. The strig scratched, kicked, and snapped. Fighting for his life.

I haven’t done anything! Damn it, Ariel, I can help you!

Christopher didn’t point out that he wasn’t Ariel.
Living outside the Laws of the Blood makes your life forfeit whenever I want.

Come on, you don’t believe in that shit!

Really?

The strig grabbed at Christopher’s hint of interest.
I know about the serial killer! I can help with that.

Why would I want to know about a mortal killer?

’Cause he worked for a demon! You don’t want a demon war, do you? If that big old fucker goes after the new guy in town, the demon the serial killer works for, it’ll be bad for our brave new Chicago. All your happy nest vamps will be running for their lives.

As will everyone else.

Demons aren’t good for anybody. Let me help.

Worked for a demon?
The question floated into Christopher’s head from Ivy, but he passed it on to the strig.
Worked. Past tense?

Damn right. I killed him. Points for me, right, Ariel?

Perhaps. Explain more.

The guy was fucking crazy, but he had balls. He looked like Dan Rourke—

Who?

You know, the news reporter that disappeared in Lake Michigan a couple of weeks ago. He looked like Rourke, but he thought he was Ted Bundy. I swear. That’s who he believed he was. Demon crap, right?

Very likely. Go on.
Christopher pressed claws deeper into the vampire’s throat.
Hurry.

The bastard showed up at my place wanting to be a companion. He wanted me to bite him. Said he’d do whatever it takes to be immortal. He said there was nothing in it for him working for a demon.

He’s right there. And?

I told him I’d think about it. But when he left, he couldn’t stop from dragging one of my bitches behind the house and killing her. He literally couldn’t keep from killing. He had to know what I’d do to him when he grabbed her, but he had to murder. The demon must have driven him to make the kill.

And you killed him.

Tore him to shreds. Bitch belonged to me. It was my right.
The strig attempted a winning smile, even though Christopher’s hand was still around his neck.
I solved your demon problem for you.

Very civic-minded of you. But it’s not my problem. Not my species, not my problem. That’s how the saying goes, yes?

I
vy backed away, and continued backing away, step by step down what seemed like an endless dark block. She couldn’t help but hear what was going on in Christopher’s head whether he wanted her there or not. His mind was open to her—full of pain, anger, and hunger. Such hot, red hunger!

And with the strig—Christopher was a cat playing with his food.

And he couldn’t help himself, could he? The monster in him had to have its way.

This insatiable hunger, that was what she’d done to him.

Oh, it’s satiable, very, very satiable.
Christopher’s thoughts were cold, evil, and happy.

Christopher took the strig into the even deeper dark shadows of an alley. Ivy turned her back. She saw what happened, anyway, from Christopher’s point of view. Felt it. Lived it.

She fell to her knees, retching. Her vomit tasted like vampire blood.

It was Lawrence who put his one good hand on her shoulder. “Time to go now,” he said. “The rest is for the Nighthawk to deal with.”

A
unt Cate was still there when they got back to Ariel’s house. She had Ivy’s big purse with her. She also held out a glass of cloudy liquid as soon as Ivy came in the door.

“How much of that shit did you take?” Aunt Cate asked.

“A couple of crystals. I didn’t trust Grandma completely.” The memory of what even that small amount had done to Christopher sent a shudder through her.

“It’s a good thing your boy’s an Enforcer,” Aunt Cate said. “Or he wouldn’t have survived even that much. Drink all of that. Don’t you dare complain about the taste.”

Ivy gulped down what proved to be an absolutely hideous brew. She didn’t want to know what was in it. “What will this do?”

“Neutralize the poison running through your system. Otherwise, it will take days to cycle through you.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have drunk it. Maybe it’s safer for me to—”

“Ready to go, Cate?” Lawrence asked. He took the bag and handed it to Ivy. “You’re staying here.” He looked at his mortal lover. “It’s gone too far between them for her to run away from him now.”

“He’s tasted her, but she hasn’t tasted him,” Cate protested. She looked at Ivy. “You haven’t, have you?” Ivy shook her head. Cate looked back at Lawrence. “It’s not too late.”

“They’re inside each other. They share dreams and dream walking.”

“How do you know that?” Ivy asked.

“I have amazing psychic powers.”

“Don’t we all?” Cate said. She sighed. And she and Lawrence twined fingers. They looked into each other’s eyes for a few moments.

Ivy knew that this couple weren’t companion and master, but she’d never thought about just what their relationship was before. “Do you two—?”

“We call it dream partners,” Lawrence said. “It’s very rare, and special. It’s more binding than blood.”

Ivy remembered every wonderful, confusing, frightening, infuriating, funny, real moment she and Christopher had spent together in dreams. “Yeah,” she said. “I know what you mean.”

“Remember, you have more than this vampire to think about,” Aunt Cate said before she and Lawrence left.

Ivy hefted her purse, aware of the physical and psychic weight of the obsidian knife at the bottom of the bag. Oh, yes, she remembered.

“Thanks a lot, Aunt Cate.”

I
vy was asleep on the bed in Ariel’s secret room when Christopher came in. He’d known she would be there, and yet, somehow, hadn’t expected it. Poisoned or not, her blood
was in him, how could he not know where she was? But he’d expected her to do something as stupid as try to run away. He didn’t know if her waiting to face his anger was a sign of maturity or stupid bravado.

He did find it endearing.

The woman was obviously driving him insane.

“If you want to stay sane, don’t get involved with demons,” he murmured, gazing down on her. She looked anything but demonic, all pink-skinned and blond-haired, with a cute, turned-up nose.

She cracked one pretty hazel eye open. “Did your old pantomime-gypsy granny tell you that? To never get involved with demons?”

He sat on the side of the bed and pulled off his shoes. He’d washed blood out of them earlier. “That would be your granny. No, let’s not talk about your granny.”

“Feeling better?” she asked.

Christopher stripped off his clothes and lay down beside her. “Aren’t you going to rail at me about my killing a man tonight?”

Both eyes came open, and she sat up to look at him. “You’re still spoiling for a fight, aren’t you?”

He pulled her down on top of him, his arm an iron clamp over her back. “Hoping for one, yeah.” The Hunt had taken the edge off—but he was still burning.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Ivy said. “We’ve established that. I’m sorry, and I will always regret what my stupidity put you through. But if you think you’re getting a morally outraged argument about life and death out of me, you are sadly mistaken.”

“I should be kissing you to keep you from talking so much.”

“You can bite me if you want. Aunt Cate fixed the poison.”

“I’ll refrain for now if you don’t mind.”

“Probably wise. Once bitten, twice shy the other way around.”

Christopher understood that bit of convulsion, which was a sign of what this mortal did to him. “Why aren’t you morally outraged?” he asked. “I thought mortals in this territory were all about pulling the fangs of proper vampires.”

“You executed a criminal vampire,” she said. “Maybe you did it because you needed a snack, but that strig was your rightful prey. We magic mortals don’t dispute everything your kind do. He was a mortal-slaving pimp. One less of that kind on the street is fine with me. And he wanted me in his slave stable. I would have killed him if you hadn’t.”

“And how would you have done that?”

“Let him bite me, of course.”

Ah, yes, he had Poison Ivy in his bed. In his arms. Her hot sexy body astride his.

He kissed her roughly, biting her lips, plundering her mouth with his tongue.

She hadn’t really meant to kill him.

I didn’t mean to hurt you.

I know.

The sex was still going to be on the rough side—if the sun didn’t come up too soon.

She bit him, a light nip on the shoulder, then again, then on his throat and chest. His skin was too tough for dainty mortal teeth to penetrate, so there was no chance of her taking his blood. But he liked the tiny lightning shocks that blazed through to his burning soul with every touch of her teeth and tongue on his skin.

Sparks of hell mixed with heaven.

She looked him in the eye. “You want rough? I’ll give it to you rough.”

“I meant I’m making it rough—on you.”

Her low laugh was sex incarnate. “Come and get me.”

He plucked her off him and rolled her onto her back. He started at her toes and began to nibble from there up her body, sharp bites but careful not to break the skin. The torture was more his own than to her, as his fangs began to ache as they sensed the blood beneath tender flesh. She squirmed and wriggled and laughed when she could have been complaining from the slight pain he caused her.

“Naughty child,” he told her. Then he caught the scent of dried blood.

“No!” she said sharply, and drew her leg away when he would have explored her calf.

He grabbed her injured leg and examined it anyway. Four long cuts marked the back of her leg. The cuts had been cleaned, but rusty lines of congealed blood ran the length of each cut.

“Don’t touch them,” she said. “There might still be poison there.”

“Did I do this?” he asked.

“Of course you did!”

Christopher didn’t recall setting claws to her tender mortal flesh, but it looked like his work. “Does it hurt?”

“Of course it hurts!”

He smiled at her outrage. “I’m not going to kiss it and make it all better.”

She smiled. Her eyes were bright with humor, and lust. “Of course you’re not.”

How could he stay furious with someone who accepted him for who he was?

“What are you going to kiss and make better?” she asked.

“Not me,” he said. He rose to his feet at the side of the bed and drew her up into a sitting position. Her mouth was level with his hard cock. He tangled his hands in Ivy’s hair and brought her head forward.

He groaned and began to rock back and forth when she took him into her mouth. Delicious sensation! This time he was determined the sun was not going to interfere with his sex life.

W
here are you going, John?”

Jack winced at the tone of the Master’s voice, soft, silky, vicious. Oh, yes, John was in trouble.

Jack wiped a tear away, mourning for Ted’s loss, and stayed quietly on the living-room couch. Usually he craved to be noticed, but not now.

“Where are you going?” the Master asked again.

John had been walking toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He turned his head but didn’t stop. He should have been on his knees. “I need some rest,” he said. “I’m a mortal, dude. I can’t go twenty-four/seven like you can.”

The sun had come up a few minutes before, but it was still dark outside. It had been a horrible night. Jack was glad it was over. But rest? How could he rest? How could John? The Master needed them now more than ever. Far more.