Claimed by the Demon

Only one way to find out.

“She’s not part of this,” Mac said with little hope, but determined all the same. “She stays.”

They laughed.

* * *

Big empty plots of land and dirty industry followed the Rio Grande, isolated from the bosque by the levee, open community land, and their own back lots. Alfalfa fields interspersed with industry right through the southern half of the city. Warehouses clustered by the railroad track spur off the north-south Rail Runner line.

Mac got only a glimpse of it all as the men opened the back doors of the closed van in which they’d crammed him after they’d cuffed him. The warehouse beside them was smaller than most and had an abandoned air; it gave him no clues. The men pulled Gwen out ahead of him—a clear hostage for his good behavior—released his cuffs, and hauled him out for a rude escort to the warehouse.

But they didn’t try to take the blade. And they didn’t touch Gwen so much as they herded her, leaving the threat an implied one. Giving him no reason. Giving the blade no reason, no excitement. Nor did they say anything else—simply put them through a door into the dimly cavernous space of that building, with only dim light from a dirty window set high.

The first thing he did was find Gwen. He put his arms around her and drew her close. To outside eyes he might have been murmuring words of comfort, but what he really said was, “I can see in the dark. Trust me if it comes to that.”

“You can what?” She didn’t keep her voice down at all. But she didn’t give anything away, either, and he thought that both were deliberate. A show of mettle, tempered by discretion.

“See,” he said, “In. The. Dark.” And then went sardonic. “Secrets. Told you we’d get around to them.”

She wasn’t impressed, apparently. “Nice timing.” But she took a deep breath and added, her voice just as low, “There’s something lurking here. But I don’t get the sense that we’re in direct danger.”

He wasn’t betting on it. He just wasn’t sure if the danger would come from an obvious direction.

A voice came from the catwalk on the far side of the space, high against the wall opposite them. Even Mac’s eyes couldn’t penetrate that corner of darkness. “I’d say I’m glad you could come, but of course you didn’t have any choice.”

Their bad guy. Their own personal kidnapper. The man who had ordered them dragged off in broad daylight in a city under siege.

Under his siege? And if so, to what purpose?

Gwen lifted her head. “Do you have delusions of supervillainy or what—He Who Must Not Be Named, lurking in the shadows?”

Mac winced, but the man’s voice stayed mild. Nothing of the sort to put chills down anyone’s back. “Close enough, for now.”

Gwen drew breath—Mac felt the suddenness of it, and closed a hand around her arm to stop her words. They were supposed to ask questions, make demands...that was their role here.

He was not inclined to fill it.

She subsided, and he turned the hold into one of reassurance.

After a few moments, he heard a disgruntled noise.

For damned sure an object came hurtling out of the darkness. Mac jerked Gwen aside, and her leap of fear funneled in through the blade, slicing along nerves that felt too much of its pleasure.

Far too much.

It didn’t used to be that way.

The object slammed to the pocked concrete beside them, and even as Mac recognized it as a suitcase, the man—disdainful, somewhat amused—said, “You should dress your girlfriend.”

He felt Gwen’s frown as surely as he’d felt her fear, but this time she kept her voice low. “What—”

“A suitcase. Your suitcase.”

“Wow,” she said, and this time she didn’t mutter it. “That is impressive. Supervillain-wise, I mean. Stealing suitcases.”

Mac couldn’t help a smile at that. So damned bold.

“I didn’t,” the man said. “But I did take it from the one who did. His fear was delicious.”

His fear was delicious.

Mac stepped away from Gwen, unconscious of it—took another step, all the while staring up at that dark corner. This man knew...

“I thought that might get your attention,” the man said.

“Who are you?”

Now he was playing by the man’s rules. Now the voice held satisfaction. “The proper question is, who are you? I had my reasons for coming here...you were not among them. Yet here you are.” A considering pause. “Perhaps drawn, much as I. Perhaps chance. Or perhaps it simply doesn’t matter. However, I have found you now.”

“And you think that’s a good thing?” Mac asked. “For you, I mean?”

“I expect it to be.” The dry voice could have been a warning.

Probably was. The blade spoke to him then—whispering a sudden song of terror and despair and confusion, infusing it with glee.

“Mac,” Gwen whispered, and he recognized it for the warning it was—her own instincts, crying out. He found his hand in his pocket, the knife settling instantly into his palm.

Never a good sign.

It flared blue-white light through the darkness, startling Gwen into a cry. A blade mutable, reshaping from stout pocketknife to arcing saber, the guard a graceful sweep enclosing his hand. A deadly beauty, gleaming in the darkness. Ready. Eager.

Overhead lights flickered on—one by one. Not quite slowly enough to keep Mac from wincing, but with more consideration than he would have expected. Until he realized it wasn’t for him.

It was because the other man, too, needed to take such care. This man knew...

A glance at that corner showed exactly why Mac hadn’t been able to penetrate those shadows—a thin fabric screen separated them. Thin enough so the man could see out but offering Mac little more than a hazy shadow as he spoke. “Pardon the dramatics,” he said. “I’m not ready to be seen, but blindfolding you wouldn’t serve my purpose.”

Mac asked what he was supposed to ask, even if he did it with a growl. “And that would be?”

“Getting your attention.” The voice held no menace—simply a confidence. An expectation that he would get from Mac what he wanted from Mac.

It set a growl in Mac’s throat, not quite voiced.

The two men from earlier marched into the vast room, paying no attention at all to its occupants. One removed the suitcase; the other simply was. When the first returned, they approached. Gwen made no protest at all when Mac put himself between them and moved to stay that way.

“’Ere now, she comes with us,” the cockney said, and the blade picked up on Gwen’s fear, too—a more familiar and poignant connection than the unknown surges in which it had already been basking. Not my feelings.

One of the men reached for Gwen.

“No,” Mac said, flatly standing ground—pushing back at the blade, even as he churned with the strength of what it threw at him, so much more intense than only a few days earlier. “She doesn’t.”

“Wasn’t a question,” the other man said. It was the first Mac had seen of his face, with skin so dark it seemed to hint of blue, features broad. His deep and lazy voice had grown impatient.

Grown stupid.

The man reached for Gwen, as if the mere presence of his boss in the shadows guaranteed his safety.

It didn’t.

The blade flashed.

It wanted him all. It fought to take him all, gulping in his first startled flash of reaction and grasping for the rest. Wanting the life-and-death struggle, wanting to feed on shock and terror and then flesh and blood itself. Mac