Claimed by the Demon

“He might not let us go a second time.” She’d scrambled into her clothes, a pale green summer top of some filmy material with cap sleeves and a neckline of which he approved, and white capri pants that turned out to be perfectly snug across her bottom and loose below the knee. “Are you listening to me, or are you looking at my ass?”

“Looking at your ass,” he said promptly. “And I don’t think he’ll be hanging around at the warehouse. It’s too exposed.”

She plunked her hands on her hips, pointedly turning her bottom in another direction as she picked up her sport sandals. “And what if he is?”

He shrugged. “We’ll knock.” And then, at her impatience, he added, “I need to know. I don’t think he’ll have left any easy clues, but maybe the blade can pick up on something.”

Alarm replaced her impatience. “But that means—”

“That’s the other thing,” he said gently. “It’s a big place. You’ll be safe.”

“When you let the blade back in.” Her voice was flat with disbelief. “You can’t —”

“I have to!” he snapped, up on his feet and stalking in close, ignoring her widened eyes. “You don’t get it, Gwen. This pendant isn’t a magic pill. I’m free, but the blade is there—it’s trying to get in. Always. And if it does that, in a place and time not of my own choosing? If it does that while we’re in public? What if it happens while I’m around someone’s kid? Someone’s mother? While I’m with you?” One more step, taking her upper arms with a ferocity he hadn’t expected to pour out so unfettered. “Because that’s what I want, Gwen. You. I don’t know you, but dammit, I do. Call it one of the blade’s few gifts.”

She reached across his chest with one encumbered arm, touching the duct tape. “And this,” she whispered, more sadly than not. “So fast...”

“Sometimes,” he said, easing his grip on her to rub his hands more gently up and down soft bare skin, “it’s like that. Even without such things.”

“It’s why I came to Albuquerque,” she said simply, meeting his gaze without qualm. Big, pale blue, full of life—and then suddenly narrowing. “Not that you should think I’m a pushover. I still have a brain, you know. I can do what’s best for me.”

A smile tugged the corner of his mouth. “Noted.” But then he had to do it—to take a deep breath and push. “But this warehouse thing...it has to be done.”

She turned away from him with a grumble; he let her go. “Check it out,” she said, so obviously changing the subject as she pointed to her suitcase. “My purse was in there, too. Along with the credit cards I’ve already replaced—those should get here today.” She picked it up, pawed briefly through the contents, plucked out a small ID wallet and slipped it into her back pocket. It hardly made a ripple against her magnificent—

She cast him a look, brow raised, and he rearranged his visual focus. “Grab something quick to eat,” he suggested. “I think the sooner we do this, the better.”

“I’m not convinced of that,” she told him, not missing a beat. But she found a yogurt drink in the little fridge and sat down at the edge of the bed, where she picked up a business card, turning it over in her hand. She glanced at him, tucking the card away with the ID wallet. “But I have to admit...you’re the only one who really knows. The only one inside your head.”

“Not exactly,” he said. “That’s the damned problem.” But he held out his hand, and she took it as she rose from the bed, casting a glance out the window behind her. For all they’d loved hard during the night—for all he’d fought through—they’d slept hard, too, and beyond the quiescent window air conditioner, the shadows were still strung out long with the early hour.

“Come,” he said gently, and she raised her chin, swiped the room key off the table, and tugged him on toward the door, out toward the stairs. At his Jeep, he handed her the keys, fending off her sharp look. “I’m good,” he said—and he had been, since that moment in the shower. “But I’m not taking any chances.”

She made a little face. “No guarantees on the driving. This shift—”

“Has personality.” He bent to clear the passenger seat, gathering up the garbage from the trip into the city.

She glanced at her VW Bug and its dead battery and made another little face—this one of acquiescence— and opened the Jeep door.

He looked out over the hotel access road. “You know, I don’t have any idea how we got back here.”

“The warehouse is off I-25,” she told him, settling into the driver’s seat. “It’s not actually that far.” She gave him a glance as she inserted the keys and added, “Oh, you mean how. I stole their van. Where do you think I got the handcuffs? I figured they’d know where to find it, and I guess they did. Of course, I did leave the keys in it, so maybe someone else found it first. That would be their bad luck, I’m thinking.”

“We should relocate,” he said, sliding into the Jeep and buckling in—and would have kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner, except when exactly had he had time to think at all?

“He could have had us at the warehouse if he’d really wanted us.” She backed out of their spot with the care of someone who didn’t quite know the vehicle. “He quite specifically didn’t want us. He wants you on his side, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to get you. No need to come after us when he thinks you’re going to come to him.”

“He’s right about that,” Mac said under his breath. It just wouldn’t be how he expected.

“Besides, you broke some of his people.”

Mac snorted. “I’m sure he has more.” He found himself scowling out the window. “I just wish I knew what he really wants.”

She gave him a startled glance, missing a chance to pull out into traffic. “Don’t you know?” she asked. “Didn’t you see it?” She bit her lip, marshaling her thoughts as she found an opportunity and got them moving, no mean hand on the cranky shift after all. “Maybe you don’t remember, given...the way things were. He’s just like your blade—what you told me of it. When he brought that woman out yesterday...I think it was all he could do to offer her to you.”

“Not to me,” Mac said, and his words came so hard and sudden that they startled him nearly as much as they’d startled her. He took a deep breath. “Sorry. I mean... Yeah. Sorry. Touchy. Just —”

“I get it.” But her voice was quiet, and she pondered her next words with obvious care. “I think he’s doing more than glorying in whatever’s going on in this city.” She didn’t have to explain that; they’d both been in the middle of it. “I think he’s making it happen. And I think he’s really, really good at it.”

The words hit home with the starkness of truth. Truth...but they still knew nothing. Not really. “All the more reason to do this.” Mac closed a hand over his pocket...resolute.

And yet some part of him already regretted the decision to bring Gwen into this at all. I should have turned around when I saw her at that diner. If this turned out to be bigger than he was...

“Did you say something?”

He shook his head, watching the highway exits, watching their route. “Just...be careful. Don’t...” He took a breath. “Don’t fight me. If this thing goes... If they find us there—” He turned to look at her then. “I need to know, going in, that you’ll run like hell. This is a last chance for me—it’s something I have to do. You don’t. I need to know—”

“Stop it,” she said, sharply at that. “Trying to drive, here. That’s hard to do when I can’t decide between smacking you silly or climbing into your lap.”

He ducked his head, hiding the bittersweet grin.

They were silent until they reached the exit, Gwen gearing down for the city streets and then quickly turning north on a less traveled road. Over a spur of tracks, a quick left, and—

“Yeah,” he said. “This looks familiar.” A bright wash of morning light, a perfectly ordinary building, a smattering of activity all around it and truck backup beepers piercing the air.

Gwen pulled up near the door—where the van had been the day before—and then, with an obvious second thought, reoriented the Jeep to point in a getaway direction, leaving the keys in the ignition. There she sat for a moment, looking at him—frank and open and worried. “You doing okay?”

“Still,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”