Claimed by the Demon

“I doubt that,” she said smartly. She got out of the car, leaving him there to laugh, however briefly.

He walked into the warehouse as if he owned it. Quietly, eyes not nearly as sensitive to the dim light as if the blade hadn’t been blocked out...controlled by the baffling pendant that Gwen had long treasured as the last vestige of a father who had tried to kill her with his own blade.

There was, he thought suddenly, so very much more to this demon blade than he’d ever guessed. He should have. But he’d been too complacent, too willing to trust his ability to keep the walls between them. Too willing to let it ride.

Gwen breathed lightly at his shoulder—spooked and wary, and he knew it without any intervention from the blade at all. He took her hand, and they stood in silence. Assessing. Listening.

Finally, Gwen murmured, “If they were gonna come for us, I think it would have happened by now.”

“Or they’re playing with us.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said it, the way her hand tightened around his. But if the man was here, and if he did indeed have a demon blade that acted as Mac’s did, then Gwen’s trepidation would be a fine and savory appetizer to what awaited them.

She needed to know. To think that way.

Together, they walked the interior of this main room, full of the usual warehouse detritus—pallets stacked over here, a few empty plastic barrels over there, the catwalk lining three walls and an oddball projection of structures for various smaller rooms or offices. The door through which they’d dragged the woman led to a warren of stumpy halls.

Mac backed out again, peering up at the catwalk.

“That’s what you really want,” Gwen murmured, pretty much reading his mind. “To see where that man was. Right where he stood.”

“Right where he stood,” Mac agreed. He loosened his grip on her hand—giving her an obvious choice—but she stayed with him as he followed his nose through those back halls. When he found the narrow wooden stairs, her hand slipped away—but she still rested her fingers at the small of his back. Just a small connection.

The stairway spilled out onto the catwalk. Plenty sturdy, good railings...the perfect vantage point from which to oversee the contents of a warehouse.

Or a killing field.

But the man had left nothing of himself here.

The blade slipped into his mind, into his body—lightning-fast, shredding nerves. The vast warehouse space wheeled around him.

“Mac?”

Because there he was, grappling with the handrail as if it was the only thing that kept him anchored to this world at all. “Still here,” he said hoarsely. “Probably not for much longer.”

And this time she said nothing. As if she’d seen enough to believe he was right. She lingered back by the door, watching him.

Back to the task at hand. His thumb slipped over rough wood. He glanced down—and then looked twice. The deep mark exposed pale new wood at the edges...a fresh wound. A single, plunging strike, gone deeper and cleaner than any ordinary blade.

“Yeah,” he said out loud.

“What?” She pushed close to see and squinted down at the mark. “How— No, never mind. We know how, don’t we? But why? Showing off?”

“Something like that.” Mac looked out over the empty space, tried to imagine himself in the man’s shoes— watching himself and Gwen...watching as he struggled with the blade, both winning and losing.

Satisfaction. Power. This view had given him everything—as well as the perfect vantage point from which to wield the blade he’d eventually thrown.

“Showing off,” he repeated. “And leaving me a message.”

“Leaving us a message,” Gwen told him. “He just doesn’t know it yet.” She rubbed her arms, looking around the space. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“Something would be wrong if it didn’t.” Just a little too abruptly, he turned away from the railing, heading back down the stairs. No obvious clues here, but then...that would have been too easy.

A man with hate in his heart and the ability to wield it as he wielded his blade. Where had he come from? What did he truly want?

And how far would he go to get it?

Gwen was the one to nail the important question as she descended the stairs on his heels. “How are we gonna find out more about this guy? It’s not like we can search for him on LinkedIn.”

“Should’ve gotten the van’s license plate,” Mac said.

Gwen laughed, dark humor in the face of it all. “And done what with it?”

“Okay,” he said, acknowledging the flaw in that with his own dark humor. “Good point.” He stopped suddenly, turning around on the stairs; one step behind, she was now nearly of a height with him. “What we do,” he said, “is follow the hate. I let the blade back in, and I follow the hate. Right to the source.”

She scowled. Opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked away, a flush settling on her cheeks and her eyes bright in the dim light. So clearly wanting to argue it all—the part about letting the blade back in, the part about getting any closer at all to that hate. But without the blade, he couldn’t trace the hate—or feel it coming. And without the hate, he couldn’t figure out what was happening here...or how to protect them from it.

Finally, her voice no more than a strained whisper, she said, “One thing at a time.”

“Okay.” He passed a gentle thumb over her cheek, and when she leaned into it, ever so slightly, he let his hand travel around and under her bound hair, sweeping past her ear and behind her nape. “One thing at a time.”

He would have hesitated, a chance for her to say not here, not now—but she didn’t hesitate at all. She kissed him hard, full of unspoken words.

But only until an anguished, animal cry rang through the back warren of halls and rooms. They jerked apart and turned to it as one. “Stay here!” he told her, with little to no hope that she actually would.

She didn’t. She was right on his heels as he followed the sound, a series of hopeless wails that led him past closed doors and pretty much straight to the source, plunging into enemy territory without care or preparation.

That one door was open. Maybe it had been a lunch room. An unfinished counter and sink arrangement ran the length of one wall, complete with an empty cutout of refrigerator-width. Cheap, filthy industrial tiles covered the floor, and a stench filled the air.

“Ugh!” Gwen said as it hit her, coming up behind him and still unable to see the room. He blocked her way —wanting to warn her, wanting to make it less horrible.

Because he’d already seen the dog. Chained to the wall, both front feet crushed in leg-hold traps, and both of those nailed straight into the floor to keep it stretched out. The stench came from its own filth...its blood, its fear. It stopped wailing when it saw them, whining under its breath instead.

But Mac couldn’t fill the whole doorway. She ducked under his arm, her hand resting on his stomach—and then froze there. When she caught her breath, she swore resoundingly. “What is this supposed to prove?”

“It’s a message,” Mac said, barely able to say it around the cold sick feeling in his throat. “A gift. A last straw. He knew I’d be back.”

“But he doesn’t know you have the pendant,” Gwen realized. “He thought this would tip you over... Oh!” This last as the dog looked at her and wagged the very tip of its tail, hopeful beyond hope. Big, brawny black Labrador- type, no collar, no tags. In the wrong place at the wrong time. “Oh,” Gwen said again. “We have to—” And she looked at Mac, beyond determined.

Mac couldn’t muster the same determination...only grim reality. “It would be kinder to put him down. Right here.”

Gwen recoiled. “No!”

She didn’t see it. Not all of it. Not yet. What he would be, if he lost this fight. What he would do. “Gwen, I’ve got to get rid of this pendant. And once I do—”

She looked from him to the dog and back again. “Oh, my God,” she said. “You think you’ll do it.”

“I think,” he said, gritting the words out, “that I’m not going to be myself for a while. I think it’ll be hours