Rise of Cain (Immortal Mercenary Book 3) Read online

  “Good to know,” I muttered sarcastically.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got this.”

  “You better,” I warned, looking over at Merry again. There were so many things I wanted to tell her, so much I wanted to say. They would have to wait though. “And Roy,” I said, looking back at him. “Don’t release the Kraken.”

  17

  I took a deep breath as Roy extended his hands to me, palms up. He motioned for me to place my hands on top of his, which I did. The whole room seemed to shift as he spoke, energy crackling and passing between the two of us before I could even make out what he was saying.

  His eyes glowed brighter red as he looked at me, his jaw tense, somehow too tense to even speak the words he was now uttering.

  Latin, I decided. What the hell was it about Latin that made it everyone’s go to magical mumbo jumbo? Maybe it was something about it being extinct, about it being nearly completely forgotten, that made it seem more exotic and potent to people.

  In reality, all language held the same amount of innate power, which was absolutely zero. Magic came from the either the person speaking or who or whatever the person speaking was channeling. Roy could be reciting these words in Klingon and they would have the same effect. Of course, that probably wasn’t the way he learned, and who was I to tell him about the fault of his people. As a warlock with a demon side big enough to augment the color of his irises, I was sure a coven of routinely close-minded and conservative warlocks had probably already done more than enough to showcase their faults to him.

  His hand latched onto mine, holding onto my palm so tightly that it almost hurt. I could feel the energy produced with his words, produced with the intent he was placing behind those words.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. I had dealt with succubus magic before. I knew how it felt to be drained of everything inside of you until it felt like you were nothing more than a skeleton barely holding up clothes. That wasn’t what this was. This was something else. This felt like a rope had been slung around my entire body, like Roy was on the other side of that rope, pulling it tighter and tighter until it constricted my lungs and cut off my breathing. I felt full and unable to release; like a balloon seconds away from popping. “This isn’t right,” I said, feeling heat as it rose into my face. “This isn’t what you-”

  “I’m cementing you to this body,” he answered after finishing up with his Latin. “All people are tied to their flesh, but I’ve giving you a double dose of it. That way, if you happen to get yourself killed again before we get your sin thing straightened out, you might not get tossed out of your ass on your ass so quickly.”

  “You should have mentioned that,” I said, feeling the pressure in me build until it felt like my head was going to pop off like a cheap champagne cork after prom.

  “Sorry. I couldn’t,” he answered. “It’s part of the spell, I’m afraid. If the body knows it’s being tampered with, it puts up innate defenses. I had to catch you off guard. I hope that’s all right.”

  “Does it matter now,” I asked, my voice so full of stress that I could barely get the words out.

  “I suppose not,” Roy answered. “The spell is already nearly complete.” He tilted his head to the side. “And that discomfort you’re feeling; it should start to drop away soon.”

  As if the feeling inside of me on his leash, I instantly began to feel better.

  The pressure started to drop and my face began to cool. I felt differently though once the tension had completely subsided. I felt stuck, as though my feet were nailed to the floor. A heaviness rested inside of me, weighing my soul enough to anchor it to this body on a more permanent basis.

  For a normal person, that might have been troublesome. I mean, who wants to stay stuck inside a body once it’s seen its heart stop beating and its eyes infested with worms and maggots? That would never happen to me though. I would always come back. I would always be inside this flesh cell, until forever wafted away.

  All this would do was hopefully stop that horror inducing thing from taking me over and, if it did that, then maybe I could focus on keeping Amber safe and trying to figure out what my brother’s endgame was to all of this.

  “That was less than pleasant,” I muttered as Roy let go of my hands.

  “Yeah,” he answered apprehensively. “If you didn’t like that, you’re probably not going to be a huge fan of what happens next.”

  I nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t like something. We might as well get it over with.” I blinked as a thought skidded across my mind. “Merry,” I said, turning around. “Would you do me a favor?”

  Her eyebrows arched up in response. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her hip jutted out. They were clear signs of self preservation. She was cutting herself off, and I couldn’t blame her. I had left her more than once at this point and, when I did, the thing that replaced me seemed to want nothing more than to find and destroy her daughter. It made sense that she would be distrusting, at least for the moment. “Could you give us a minute?” I asked.

  “You want me to leave?” she balked.

  “If this goes wrong, it could be very dangerous,” I answered. Then, swallowing hard, I admitted something I probably wouldn’t have even ten years ago. “Plus, I don’t want you to see what happens. When a demon like Roy-”

  “Half demon,” he interjected.

  “When a half demon like Roy,” I corrected. “Does what he’s about to do to a person, it’s intense. It reduces them to something less than they were. If it happens for long enough, it reduces them to less than human.” I shook my head. “I don’t want you to see me like that.”

  She stared at me for a long moment, as if she was deciphering some hidden meaning behind my words. Her eyes narrowed and then got wide in an instant. She looked down and then back up at me. My heart was racing, trying to decide what it was she thought she knew.

  “I was upset before,” she answered. “I am upset. I know you can tell. I know you can see it, but I also hope you know that I understand. What’s happening to you, what you become when it happens, it’s not really you. You know I know that, right?”

  I took a deep breath, taking her all in. The Big Guy and I had had our differences over the centuries. We had certainly not seen eye to eye on a lot of things. But I had to give it to Him. The dude really outdid himself when he made her.

  “I know that, Merry,” I said, nodding firmly. “But it was nice to hear it all the same. Now, if you would please just step outside, and maybe take the imp with you.”

  “Oh that’s cool,” Gary answered, waving me off with an elongated green hand. “I kinda already think you’re a jackass. So it really doesn’t matter how I see you.”

  “I appreciate your candor,” I answered. “But it was more about keeping her safe in case something happens.”

  “Right, right,” the imp answered. Then, as he headed with merry out the door, he looked back at Roy. “Bon Appetit, Roy Boy.” He winked his spider eye at the warlock and then headed out.

  “Don’t mind him,” Roy said once the door was closed. “He’s never been the subtle type.”

  “I can tell that,” I said, closing my hands into fists at my sides.

  “You nervous?” Roy asked, looking me over. “I’ll make it quick. I promise.”

  “It’s not that,” I answered, shaking my head. “I’ve been through a hell of a lot worse than what you’re about to do to me. I’m afraid for my friends. I’m afraid fore the world. If I don’t get to the bottom of this, then everything ends.” I looked back up at the demon, whose eyes had gone back to a human color. I saw something in them as I stared, something I had seen before back in the War Room. This guy was a kindred spirit. He had been proofed in the fire, a lot like myself, and he had come out stronger for it. Of course, there was something else in his eyes too, something that definitely had not been there in the War Room. There was a sense a loss, an emptiness that hit so close to me
that I was afraid it might be contagious.

  “I know you understand that,” I continued, nodding at him.

  “I do,” Roy said. “I had some issues of my own a little while ago. When I saw you in Savannah, things were bad, and they on;y got worse.” He stopped a beat.

  “They’re better now, but not everyone made it to that part. I lost some good people. I lost someone I loved very much, and I still haven’t been able to find her.”

  “Find her?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

  “It’s complicated,” he admitted. “And a story for another time, if I’m being honest. For now, I need you to relax and do your best to let me in. Most of the time, when I do something like this, the person on the other end isn’t very open to it.”

  “That makes sense,” I answered. “Seeing as how you’re basically killing them.”

  “Right,” Roy said. “But that’s different with you and I need you to act like it. Be open. Give me access. That’s the best chance I have at finding out the source of your anomaly.”

  “Consider me an open book,” I replied. “A damn long book, but an open one, all the same.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get started then.”

  Before I could respond, Roy Morgan drove his hand into my chest. I felt the magic immediately. It pulled at me, a gaping maw, a hungry mouth feeding on my very existence.

  It was draining at first, like someone had stuck the front end of a vacuum into my chest cavity and was sucking everything out. First, all the moisture, then the density. After that, I felt it pierce my soul.

  Regular people don’t realize there’s a difference between body and spirit. They think its all interconnected and, because they’ve never truly felt someone attack their soul, they assume it would feel the same as an attack on the body.

  It does not.

  I felt my soul give way to the magic, disintegrating and falling prey to this succubus and his never ending hunger. My memories fell victim to this man. Instinctively, I tried to keep them, to hold on to a semblance of what I was and who these memories made me.

  Then I remembered I wasn’t the most important person in all of this and my well being was a distant second to that of my friends’ and the worlds’. So I did as Roy asked. I opened myself up and invited him into everything. The good, the bad, and the unspeakably bad was laid bare in front of him.

  And that’s when everything went wrong.

  18

  I felt the blowback instantly. An unseen hand threw itself into the center of our connection and thrust Roy and I away from each other. I went flying through the room, feeling the ache as my body was torn away from the leech-like suction the demon had on me.

  Slamming against the far wall hard, I saw stars as I slid to the floor. Looking up, I saw the same thing was happening to Roy. He slid to the floor, looking up at me.

  His eyes were red and pulsating with hunger, and then I watched as his face changed. Agony read through it as he screamed, convulsing in pain as his body arched upward.

  I stood quickly, far too aware of what was going on. “Damnit. It’s too soon,” I muttered to myself. The sevenfold aspect of my curse was a hell of a thing. It always came, though the timing was suspect to say the least. Sometimes, the repayment of slights against me would come days, weeks, or even years after they had taken place. Sometimes though, like right now, it was instant.

  I ran toward the demon, feeling for him as he felt what I had just been feeling, only seven times more intense. I could barely wrap my head around that. What Roy was doing to me felt like my entire body was melting away, taking my soul with it. It felt as though, when he was done, nothing would be left of me. So I could only imagine what that would feel like seven times over. The agony, the utter hopelessness that must have been running through that man’s body seemed staggering, and then I got conformation of that.

  His entire body went still and, for a sickening second, I thought he was dead. Kneeling over him, my pulse was racing and as my mind filled with horrible imagery. Roy was trying to help me. My problems had been brought to his doorstep, and now he was going to die because of it. He was going to die and I was no closer to figuring any of this out.

  Then, I thought of his child. Merry said he had a son. The idea of leaving this kid without a father, leaving him to wander the world with no one to call his own felt like the worst kind of inescapable irony.

  No. I had to fix this somehow. I had to-

  As I reached to check his pulse, his hand jutted upward. A sigh of relief ran through me, but that relief was record shatteringly short lived.

  Roy’s eyes flew open, as red and glowing as ever as his hand wrapped itself around my throat and squeezed hard.

  People always say things about demons. They’re scary. They’re evil. They can possess people and have frightening magic powers. What no one ever says is that the real secret sauce of being a demon has to be their upper body strength.

  That was what I thought anyway as the Atlanta detective with a warlock heart and demon eyes nearly crushed my voice box upon impact.

  I tried to pull away from him, but his grip was too strong. I tried to scream, to talk some sense into him, but- like I said- my voice box wasn’t in the best shape. I felt the blood pool in my face as the air supply was cut off to the rest of my body.

  The pain he was going through, the effect of the curse, must have driven him mad temporarily. It must have stolen his senses, because as I looked into his glowing red eyes, all I saw was an animal staring back at me.

  “What the hell!” I heard from behind me. “What did you do to him?”

  The voice I heard was unmistakably male and even more unmistakably imp. So I knew the concern in it wasn’t for me. Instead, Gary was really worried about the guy who was, at this very moment, choking the life from my immortal body.

  I saw a flash of green in my peripheral and then felt a kick against my chest.

  It knocked me backward hard, but I was okay with it because, in addition to getting me away from Roy, it tore me away from the chokehold he had on me.

  “Get away from him,” I croaked out, holding my red and raw throat. “he’s dangerous.”

  My words were only slightly above a whisper and they came too late anyway.

  No sooner had I spoke that Gary, now standing with his back to Roy so that he could protect the man from me, became victim of a pretty nasty blue energy ball.

  It sent the imp flying toward me and, as he it the ground, skidding to a stop near my feet, I saw glistening electricity running through his body. Suddenly, I felt Merry at my back.

  “No!” I said, and this time my voice didn’t fail me. “You get the hell out of here. Do you understand me?”

  “What’s going on?” she asked, fear vibrating through her words.

  “My curse,” I said, scrambling to my feet. “It got the better of him. Now go!” I pushed Merry toward the door, and she turned when she saw I wasn’t following her out of it. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I can’t, Merry,” I admitted quickly, turning to find Roy standing, his body flush with energy. “What’s happening to him is my fault. He’s not in control of himself right now and I couldn’t live with myself if I just left and he ended up hurting someone he cared about or himself.” I took a deep breath. “And if there’s one this I have to do Merry, it’s live.” I pushed the door closed in her face, locking it. “I’ll be fine,” I muttered to her, though it was mostly to myself.

  “Roy, you need to calm down,” I said, holding my hands out in front of me. I saw Gary, still on the floor. I wanted to help him, to have Merry carry him out, but he was still rife with electrical energy and coming in contact with him would have harmed her.

  Roy didn’t seem to care (or maybe even understand) what I was talking about. His body was off the floor, popping with warlock energy.

  “Roy!” I repeated. “Think of your life. Think of your son, okay!”

  Still, there was nothing in his eyes. That was when I real
ly understood what had happened. The demon part of Roy was eating at me, taking my humanity away. That must have been what happened to him. His humanity must have been completely eaten away.

  A lumbering dread filled me. If that had happened, he was likely gone forever now. The truth of who Roy was had disintegrated and fell out into the either. Maybe he was even in the Nexus. Wherever he was, he wasn’t inside this shell.

  Roy’s arms lifted and I felt a wave of energy knock me into the air. I turned as my body flew and felt a rib crack as I landed against the coffee table, shattering it into splinters.

  My back screamed in pain as I lay there. Looking up at the ceiling, I saw him float over me, his red eyes peering into my soul.

  “They say you can’t die,” he muttered, his voice layered and deepened with energy. “I’d like to test that theory.”

  His hand rose and fell and, as it did, a spike of red energy drove toward my head.

  Though it hurt like hell, I moved quickly, dodging the spike and letting it pass through the floor.

  I spun quickly as I rose, remembering a thing or two about tussling with warlocks. They were powerful. There was no doubt about it. Still, they weren’t as powerful as they liked to think they were. They were an arrogant bunch for the most part and, though I got the feeling Roy was exempt from that, the people who taught him almost certainly weren’t.

  Warlocks raised their kids they were the freaking kings and queens of the supernatural world. They taught them to live as though they had no weaknesses and, for that reason, most of the newer generation didn’t even really know about the three second refractory period between big spells.

  I did though, and I used the knowledge to my advantage.

  Turning quickly, I drove a leg into Roy’s chest, knocking him backward. Then, as he stumbled, I did it again and again.

  Energy spooled around him, and I ducked down, tucking my body into itself and delivering a sweeping keep to his legs.