Unearthed (38 page)

“Shit,” Addison said on a sigh. “Parker, I swear to the powers, if you ever fall in love with one of them, I’m going to murder you.”

“Never going to happen. Don’t worry.” She paced the length of the bookshelves. “Let’s say for a minute it works just like the murderous demon and the psychotic vampire told you it would. Because obviously, they’d never lie to anyone.”

Keira didn’t need to see the eye roll to know it happened. “In my defense, the demon
wasn’t
murderous at the time. He was hoping the information would prove it was a bad idea. And the vampire was
so
psychotic he thought it would scare me away. So, if either of them were lying, they would’ve been
exaggerating
the negatives.”

“It’s disturbing that any of this actually makes sense,” Parker said. “But, even if your demon stays, what happens fifty years from now? He’ll still have half your soul.” Only if Keira was still alive. But she understood what Parker was asking: at the end of her life, he’d go back to hell, but what would happen to their shared soul? Would the Devil suck her down as well?

“Isn’t there anything in any of these books?”

Parker shook her head and then looked at Addison. “You could call—”

“No, Parker. I can’t call him every time we need something.” It was as if they’d learned how to read each other’s minds without magic.

“Your vamp friend?” Keira asked.

“No, her angel friend. M, the one you met. Remember?”

“He’s tough to forget.” Plus, she’d seen him just a few days ago. It had been hard enough to ask him for help then. He’d already done so much. For all she knew, asking him for more might get him in trouble with his people. “We’ve already had the demon discussion, and I doubt he knows any more than he told me then.”

“M may be great,” the historian said, “but he’s still a super. All of them keep secrets.” Even Davyn? “One simple question. Please? I want to try calling him.”

“His wings will probably be plucked if anyone found out he helped us,” Addison grumbled. “It’s not fair to expect this much of him, not in his position.”

“He’s a big boy.” Parker rolled her eyes and then closed them. “If he doesn’t want to help, he can always say no.”

“If you’re going to stalk him,” the dat vitae said, “he’ll probably change his name.”

Parker kept her eyes shut for a while, tilting her head, shaking it and nodding. Keira turned away, uncomfortable with the person right in front of her talking about her, but not being able to hear a word she was saying.

Addison pulled her sweater more tightly around herself. “It’s not that I don’t want to help you, Keira. Or your demon, for that matter. The world needs all the decent ones we can find—you know, if he ever becomes decent again. But this war is bigger than any one of us. Saying the wrong thing can get someone killed, and asking for favors means we owe favors. Shockingly, we don’t have a lot of support, so what we
do
have needs to be used sparingly. Know what I mean?”

“Completely. You don’t owe me anything, and I owe you everything.”

“Oh powers, don’t say that. If anything, I owe you for telling me straight-out I was being a moron. But I don’t want to play a Who Owes Who More contest. We’re in this together, a family, remember? Helping in different ways because we all have different strengths. Although some of us—meaning me—are still trying to locate ours.” Her grimace turned into a grin. “The favors and support I was talking about come from people outside the Rising.

“Plus, I don’t want to lose anyone else. I can’t. I just—” Addison stopped when she saw Parker almost bouncing with excitement. “What?”

“Knowing how much you love sappy shit,” Parker said, “I can’t wait until you hear this.”

“How annoyed was he?”

“He’s an angel. Half their job is listening to people whine, so I’m sure he has a really high annoyance threshold. If you don’t believe me, ask him when he gets here.” She threw her hands up. “What? I didn’t ask him to come.” Ignoring Addison’s curse, she turned to Keira. “The only way to keep your demon out of hell is to get him into the Great Beyond. The tricky part is that demons aren’t allowed to go there.”

“Then how’s he supposed to do it?”

“Love, kindness, and a bunch of other things no one would ever believe a demon could do.”

Suddenly M was there, looking very unhappy.

“I tried telling her she was annoying, M. Maybe if
you
tried—” Addison paused. “Wait a minute! This place is warded to keep non-humans away. You’re a non-human.”

“You noticed that, did you?” he asked. “What gave me away?”

“You’re not supposed to be here, M.”

“True.” He cocked his head to the side, glancing at Parker. “As true as the fact that you weren’t supposed to tell anyone my name.”

“I know.” The dat vitae chewed on her nail. “It was a slip-up I’m positive I’ll never repeat. If it makes you feel any better, as soon as I said it, I told her to forget it.”

“How would that—?” The angel’s sigh calmed everyone in the room. Powerful stuff. “I will feel better once you’ve earned back my trust…and are well again.”

“It’s the flu.”

Oh, shit. Their leader was ill, and all Keira had been doing was causing her more stress.

“Are all women of the Rising this stubborn and beyond reproach?” When no one answered—not a big surprise there—he turned to Keira. “I advised you against this, hunter. Strongly. Even prior to this possibility. A demon is…even
that
one…” Did all angels do this much sad head shaking? “I wish to see.”

“See what?” As he approached, she tilted her head up to keep eye contact.

“Into your mind.” Her shield wasn’t angel-proof, so Micah was asking for permission. “Before I discuss any of this, I need to know if your feelings are pure, not created by magic or by your humanity’s self-destructive needs.” Good call. She had a lot of those. She also had nothing to hide.

“Okay.” She relaxed and let him in, dropping her shield and hoping he’d see enough to convince him of what she already knew.

After a moment, he let out a burst of laughter under his breath and mumbled, “What have you done, old friend?” What did that mean?

“Addison, Parker,” he said. “You cannot hear what I am about to tell her.”

“Okay, we’ll be in the break room…breaking, I guess. And covering our ears with the music on really loud.”

After they were gone, Micah came closer, keeping his voice low. “What I am about to tell you is something unknown outside of my race and the Devil himself. Not even his subjects know, because he does not allow them to remember.” He looked away, as if reconsidering the whole thing. “I should not be here, should not be telling you this. Do you understand how vital it is that you never repeat what I’m about to tell you? It will not only tear apart the Highworld. Both worlds will suffer.”

She nodded.

“I’m taking this risk because you are as stubborn as the women who just left, and you will bond with the demon regardless of what I advise. It affects his future as well as yours, and there are things you need to know in order to be successful.

“The soul must be given,” he continued. “It must be given freely as a gift of love, not stolen or shared under duress. If there is doubt in your heart, any hesitation, your soul will be ripped apart. There is no way to determine how that fissure will run, how much will remain inside you and how much he will take within himself. If you’re left with too little…”

“That’s what you were looking for in my mind? Doubt?”

“In part. The other was to see if you were sane. Do not be offended—who in their right mind would give away something so integral to their being?”

“I would.”

“Yes, you would.” A sympathetic smile flickered across his face. “As would some of us.”

“Angels? Why would an angel do that?”

“That is a discussion I cannot have. All you need to know is demons and angels are far more connected than one might think. It is from this connection I can surmise how to keep him free from an eternity in hell. If you do this, you are committing half your soul and the rest of your life to make certain he will never go back there. To have even half a human soul in hell…you cannot let it happen. Do you understand?”

“Not really, but I think I got the big no-nos.”

“Once the soul enters his body, his humanity will return. Were he to fight that part of himself, to revert to his demonic self at any time, the soul would weaken beyond repair.”

“So he needs to behave.”

He nodded. “Something Davyn is not particularly skilled at, even late in his tour. He will have your lifetime before his demonic side is called back to hell. Therefore, he will have your lifetime minus a day to redeem himself. He must pass from this world before the Devil calls for his return. If he has done enough good, experienced enough love, the Devil will not want him back.”

The risk was enormous. If Davyn didn’t love her the way she thought he did, Keira would drift away into nothing. At least he’d be able to live it up, until she died and he got hauled down to the bottom of hell. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. At least not after she passed the point of no return. There was no use worrying about what happened next. Because everything after that would be out of her control. She had to hope, to believe in both of them.

“No problem,” she said.

“For Davyn, yes. But for you to have to put up with him that long?” The angel smiled. “I don’t envy you that. I suggest you wait until you’ve considered exactly what it means for both of you. Of course, as of late, my recommendations seem to be going unheard.”

“I heard it.” She just wasn’t going to follow it. Everything would work out…probably…she hoped. Because it was based on a simple fact:

“He loves me.”
That
, she knew.

Addison and Parker sat next to each other on the couch, trying to listen while trying to convince themselves they weren’t trying to listen. Total fail on all counts. Micah wasn’t the loud and abrasive type, and neither of them had supernatural hearing.

“What if the demon had your blood?” Parker blurted.

Addison’s mind had already been there, taken a couple trips around the block to look for something better, and then given up. “I can take away his powers, not his personality. So he’d still want to kill Keira. And me for doing it.” Even an unhappy
ex
-demon didn’t seem like a good thing to have around. “
You
might be able to get away though.”

“Well, that’s something, I guess,” Parker said dismissively. “If he were mortal, he’d be easier to kill.”

“Right now Keira’s figuring out how to safely give a portion of her soul to the guy. I don’t think she’d consider offing him as a mortal a compromise, do you?”

They both shut up quick when Keira opened the door. “M helped me figure it out, so…um…I’m going to go take care of it now. Thanks for your help.”

“We haven’t helped yet.” Addison pushed herself off the couch, keeping her head down. Her pathetic attempt to keep the pain from showing on her face only made it more obvious she was hurting. “Let’s get going.”

Parker slipped her arm through hers, taking some of her weight and getting close enough to whisper. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

“I’ll live.” Addison saw the concern in her friend’s eyes and the new wrinkle she had between her eyebrows.
That’s my fault
. “How far is his place?”

If the hunter’s plan didn’t work out, Addison could spare a little blood. Probably. Of course, they wouldn’t know if it worked or not until after Keira only had half a soul, and no bodily fluid or supernatural power could put her back together again.

At least the demon lived in a luxury building with a great elevator. Long hallways, though.

Keira stopped and turned around. “Are you sure you’re okay, Addison?”

“Yeah, totally,” she said, thankful for a chance to catch her breath as subtly as possible. “I’ve been pulling too many all-nighters, busting my groove, stuff like that.”

“If something happened to you because of this, because of
me
, I—”

“Nothing’s going to happen…to me. I’m fine, really.” Although, the corner-of-the-eye glances were getting old. Understandable, considering how long she took to walk down the hallway, but still old.

Truthfully, Addison was fighting to stay upright. Her head pounded and she couldn’t stop blinking, as if that would help her balance. But so far, no one had realized exactly how bad it was or how much worse it seemed to be getting.

When you’re leading a rebellion, sick days have to be put off. It seemed kind of horrible to be tucked in bed with some soup, watching reality TV and feeling sorry for yourself while other people fought for their lives and everyone else’s. Keira had been totally right to call Addison out. She’d been hiding for months, afraid any decision she made would end up killing someone. While the fear would never be gone, she knew the only way to ensure a better life for any of them was to at least try.

“You know this might not work at all, right?” Addison whispered as Keira led them into the apartment. Why was she whispering? Not to wake up the sleepy demon? Yep, this was a truly terrible idea. How exactly were they going to exorcise a demon out of a demon? What if it went as wrong as she imagined it would?

Maybe she should’ve asked Graham to come as an advisor instead of sneaking away before he had a chance to tell her how stupid this idea was.

“I’m not afraid, Addison. You shouldn’t be either.”

“Oh please, Keira. If you think this is me being afraid, you’ve never seen me in front of a hungry vampire.” She was pretty sure she smiled. Could’ve been more of a grimace or a sneer, but she’d been going for a smile. Then she saw the demon. He definitely wasn’t smiling. “Crap. Are you serious?”

Keira’s demon was Davyn? The hunter had fallen for the one demon Addison knew and hated more than any other—at least until that other demon had come along. Although, now that
it
was gone, she would happily go back to hating Davyn the most. He looked more brutal than she remembered, but she recognized him. Still gorgeous in a terrifying way.