The Demon's Game (25 page)

“Your name is Asian, right? Korean?”

“Japanese,” I corrected. Of course, I was lying, but
saying that my name originated in Duran would have gotten me in a lot of
trouble. I sat down on the stool and set the clipboard on the table. Because
she didn’t fill in any of the questions, I had to ask them and fill them in for
her.

“Nihongo ga hanase masu ka?” she asked.

Although my Iadnah magic could translate language for
me, it wasn’t a flawless method. In fact, the headache alone that it could
inflict was worth the effort to actually learn a new language. Therefore, when
she asked me if I could speak Japanese, I was prepared. “Hai.”

“Saisho no namae wa nanidesu ka?”

She wanted to know my first name and it gave me a bad
feeling. She looked a little too excited to be hurting. “So you checked in for
abdominal cramping? When did the pain start?”

She sighed and rolled her head back on her shoulders.
“Last night.”

“Are you still in pain?” I asked.

“Aren’t you supposed to listen to my heart or
something?” she asked, hopping up from the exam bed. “I can take my shirt off.”

Before I could stop her, she got the top three
buttons undone and her cherry-red bra on proud display. I stood and started to
leave. “I’m getting you another doctor,” I said. The last thing I needed was to
be hit on by head-strong teenaged girls at work, especially when my wife was
powerful enough to destroy every living woman on the planet.

“Please, stop!” she begged desperately.

My hand was on the handle when I was turned and
shoved roughly against the door. She was strong; definitely too strong to be
human. Gone was the innocence in her eyes, as well as much of the youth in her
face, so she looked to be in her mid-twenties instead of teens. It was my
intention to push her away right up until she wrapped her arms around my neck
and pulled me down to kiss me.

My brain shut down and every nerve ending lit with
arousal. It didn’t matter who she was or how old she was or the fact that I was
married. It didn’t matter that Divina would kill her. The only thing that
mattered was how good she felt against me.

This wasn’t the playful banter or aggressive caresses
I shared with Divina; this was an absolute desperate need to touch and get inside
this woman. The next thing I knew, I had her on the exam bed. One quick jerk of
my hand and her shorts were on the ground, torn. If it weren’t for the
overwhelming heat, I probably would have been a lot faster. It had to have been
at least a hundred and fifteen degrees in the room, and that was
counterproductive to whatever the hell I was trying to do with the stranger.

She didn’t kiss; she bit, and that was okay because I
liked it. Kissing was for the person I cared about. I pinned her arms when she
tried to reach for me again. Despite the fact that I was about five seconds
from taking her, I didn’t want her to touch me. She moaned and wiggled. My body
moved without orders from my brain.

Bright light filled the room and I had to close my
eyes, even though I was very familiar with the flash. After all, I used it all
the time. When the flash cleared, Mordon was there. He instantly grabbed me by
the arm and pulled me off the young woman. She was just as fast. She wrapped
herself around me and tried to pull me back in for another kiss, but Mordon’s
claws extended. He raked them down her back and she let me go with a screech.

That was about the time my neurons started firing
again. Vertigo and lethargy dominated over the quickly evaporating lust and I
pretty much collapsed. Mordon caught me, as I knew he always would.

“Are you okay now?” he asked.

“I’m… confused.” I was confused as to why I gave into
the woman I didn’t even like, I was confused as to how I could disregard my
marriage to a goddess, and I was confused as to why my pants were open. I knew
very well what sin I had been about to commit, I just hadn’t realized I was so
close to it.”

“She used magic to seduce you,” he growled. His teeth
were shifted and bared. “She’s a demon.”

“I’m not a demon,” she snarled. “I’m a succubus.”

“A sex demon,” I pointed out.

“I’m not any class of demon. We’re called demons
because we have magic, we can dream walk, and we feed on energy, but we are
completely unrelated.”

“Send her to the void,” Mordon suggested.

“Why didn’t my magic work on you?” she asked Mordon.

The fog in my head was clearing faster now, but the
lethargy wasn’t. “He’s a dragon,” I said. Her eyes widened and she took a step
back from him. “Why did you attack me? You came here specifically looking for
me.”

“I was hired by Sardis.” She vanished.

*          *          *

Divina didn’t return that night. The boys weren’t
concerned since they were used to her disappearing for days, but this was
different. Ron made dinner, bickering with Hail and Xul, while I sat beside Mordon
on the couch in silence. I was both ashamed to face my wife and in a hurry to
hold her in order to get the memory of the succubus out of my mind. As the
hours passed, I grew more and more worried for her safety.

Mordon patted my shoulder and sat down at the table
to eat the lasagna that Ron made, which was my favorite. I tried very hard to
follow the conversation as I ate until I realized that Hail rambled while Ron
looked exhausted. After about ten minutes, they switched and Ron rambled while
Hail rested. They were as worried as me, but they were trying very hard to hold
us all together.

“You should go see your girlfriend tonight.”

“Sydney can wait,”
Mordon said with absolutely
no room for argument. He would not be persuaded on this.

“You flashed,” I said suddenly. Hail, Ron, and Xul
stared at me.

“Took you long enough,”

“Bite me.”

“We already know we can use each other’s magic; that
you can absorb my fire and I can absorb your Iadnah energy when we touch and
use it for a short time. Apparently, we can use each other’s magic from a
distance. I felt what was happening and needed to get to you. It was exactly
the same as when we’re touching and I take your energy. The weird part was
flashing.”

“Kind of feels like you’re trying to walk through a
brick wall, doesn’t it?” Hail asked him. “Like, you know you shouldn’t be able
to do it, but somehow you can. And the entire time, you keep thinking you’re
about to die some horribly painful death because there’s no way it won’t go
wrong.”

“That isn’t how flashing feels at all,” Ron argued.

“It’s easy for you two. Mordon and Hail aren’t
naturals at it,” Xul explained.

After dinner, as soon as the boys went to their room,
Xul pulled out a bottle of black label Southern Comfort from the cabinet above
the sink. “No way. Mordon and I have to get up early,” I said.

“For what?” Mordon asked.

“One of my patients the other day is an elderly man
who injured himself trying to fix his roof. His wife died less than a year ago
and his son is gone. He needs help keeping his house together, so I volunteered
us.”

Mordon didn’t even hesitate before nodding his
acceptance. I probably should have asked him first, but I knew my brother. He
grew up as the son of a king, where getting his hands dirty for the common man would
earn him a night in the dungeons by his father, yet he did it anyway.

“How bad is the place?”

“I haven’t seen it. Apparently he has some critters
in the attic.”

He nodded again. “Bring the mobile phone thingy and
we’ll call the other dragons in if we need to. The guy with the funny hair on
the news said it was going to get cold on Monday. An old man shouldn’t have
holes in his walls in winter.”

“You two are so weird. Why do you care so much about
a stranger? And an old, frail mortal at that? He’ll probably die soon anyway,”
Xul said, starting to pour himself a drink. I took the decanter and glass away
from him and put them back in the cabinet.

“If you don’t understand, then you’re coming with us.
Life is the only thing that man has left and if he’s about to lose it, it
should damn well be good. He’s not going to die doing something like trying to
fix his house when we could do it much faster, easier, and safer.”

“But I don’t want to go,” the demon whined.

“Don’t be a brat. The boys will go to; they can clean
his house.”

“Why do you smell like a succubus?” Xul asked. Mordon
tried and failed to hide a laugh behind a cough. “It’s been bugging me all
night, but I didn’t want to bring up any awkward questions in front of the
boys.”

“I was ‘attacked’ by a succubus at work.”

“That sucks. How did she compare to a goddess?”

“I didn’t do it.”

His eyes bugged out. “You resisted the powers of a
succubus? They are masters of seduction. They survive by being the best.”

“I couldn’t fight her. Mordon showed up and snapped
me out of it.”

“I bet she went ballistic.”

“Actually, she calmed down. She said she was hired by
Sardis.”

“The vampire who kidnapped Mordon and the boys?” he
asked. I nodded. “Well, that is interesting. That seems more like a demon trick
than a vampire scheme. Maybe the vampires are taking notes.”

“What are you talking about? What scheme? You know
why they hired her to seduce Dylan?” Mordon asked.

“Well, the only reason I can see them employing a
succubus is to get a child. It’s probably the oldest demon trick in the book. A
demon would ally with a third party to seduce their enemy. The third party
would impregnate or get impregnated by the demon’s enemy. Then the demon would
get the child and either use the baby as a hostage or raise it to fight the
demon’s enemy itself. Incubi and succubi were favored for obvious reasons.”

“How was I able to resist her if her magic was so
powerful?” Mordon asked.

“You’re a dragon,” Xul explained. “Incubi and succubi
are designed to feed from and breed with people. Dragons are incompatible, so a
succubus cannot feed from them. Therefore, there is no logical reason for their
powers to work on you.”

“Why was she so furious when Mordon called her a
demon?”

“She smelled like a demon,” Mordon added.

Xul glared. “We don’t smell anything like those
skanky bitches. Demons are powerful beings from the void, whereas the incubi
and succubi are more closely related to the fae species. The only magic they
have involves energy, seduction, and illusions. They can feed on your energy
while you sleep. Their seductive powers actually use your own energy against
itself.”

“So the more powerful you are…” Mordon said.

“Theoretically, the more powerful you are, the better
they can seduce you.”

*          *          *

The next morning, we pulled into Jack’s driveway at
nine. He was sitting on his porch and gaped at us as Mordon, Xul, the boys, and
myself got out of the car.

“I didn’t think you’d really come,” he said.

“Dylan always does what he says he will. Where can we
start?” Mordon asked.

“Well, there’s another hole in the roof and…” he
trailed off and looked down beside him. To the left of his plastic lawn chair
was a hole in the floor of the porch.

We did a quick search around the house to determine
what we needed. Although Jack had roofing material and tools, the porch and one
of the walls on the back of the house was going to have to be rebuilt.

Mordon and I got to work on the roof while Xul… well,
he was apparently afraid of heights. The demon took the list of materials we
needed and went to the store instead. I had to text him a few minutes later to
add forgotten items to the list. Mordon was absolutely fascinated with the
convenience of texting.

The boys split the cleaning duty until Ron whined
about the cleaner drying out his hands. Ron vacuumed and washed windows while
his brother volunteered to do everything else.

Within ten minutes, we realized there was no way we
could get everything done that day without more help, so Mordon called in the
dragons. The sheriff’s truck pulled in behind my Jaguar and a man got out. He
was thin but not skinny. His hair was brown and his eyes were an interesting
grey color with a hint of blue. I climbed down the ladder with Mordon right
behind me. He took his usual place to my left when the sheriff approached me,
as if daring the dragon to attack me. The sheriff realized his place among the
living was being threatened and kept his eyes just a little too low to meet
mine.

“I’m Dylan Yatunus,” I said, holding out my hand.
Mordon growled as the sheriff shook my hand and I elbowed him in the gut.
“Shut
up. You called him here.”

“Rojan did it,”
he lied.

“I’m Taylor McCoy.” He glanced up at my face and his
eyes widened. “I didn’t realize it in the hospital with the fluorescent lights.
Your hair and eyes are different, but you look a dead ringer for…” he trailed
off, realizing he was about to admit something. “Never mind.”

“I look like Ronez?”

“Yes. You know him?”

“I should hope so. He’s my father.”

“Oh, wow. I suppose you’re following in his
footsteps. I mean, you’re helping people and all. How is he doing? I haven’t
seen him in many years. I signed his book.”

He couldn’t have realized how much of a complement it
was to be compared to my father as opposed to my mother. Then the pain of
losing him hit me in the gut, as it always did when he was mentioned. Hearing
stories from Edward about him was always wonderful and agonizing for both of
us. “He died thirteen years ago,” I said.

His expression was stunned and then a mix of
resignation and pity. “I’m sorry for your loss. I wish I had known; I would
have liked to have attended his funeral. He was one of the best men I ever knew
and I will always regret not getting back in touch with him.”