“You should know that Myrial was working with a Fae general,” I said, deciding that there was no benefit from trying to withhold the information from Nigellus. The fact that a demon who should have been our enemy remained our most powerful ally was still doing my head in... but it was what it was.
“I didn’t get the impression they were all that buddy-buddy on a personal level,” I continued, “but Myrial delivered me straight to him after she snatched me from the electrical substation in Modesto.”
Albigard had warned me about such an alliance, and I couldn’t think of two more dangerous people to be the unnamed co-conspirators.
“Yes,” Nigellus mused. “Caspian’s presence at the site of the battle was rather hard to miss, even though he was... indisposed... at the time. That one was always was a bit unhinged, though I confess some surprise that he would be willing to reach across the lines of demarcation in such a way.”
I was surprised at how forthcoming Nigellus appeared to be tonight. Maybe nearly getting his ass handed to him earlier had affected him more than he let on, I thought. Or maybe he was starting to realize how serious things were getting.
“Myrial and Caspian both want another war,” I offered. “Maybe they think a back-channel alliance is the quickest way to achieve that.”
“I find it more likely that they both want power, and hope to gain it by destabilizing the current ruling hierarchies in Hell and Dhuinne,” he retorted.
It was as good a hypothesis as any, I supposed. I’d just drawn breath to ask him another question when Guthrie stirred on the bed. Nigellus was on his feet in a flash.
“Get out immediately, Zorah,” he said. “It’s early for him to be waking fully, but you should go wait outside the apartment, just in case.”
I wavered for an instant. “Are you going to be all right in here with him if he goes all Night of the Living Dead on us? You were pretty badly drained earlier.”
Nigellus shot me a jaded look. “I’m a demon of fate, and I’m present at a nexus point that has just created the second vampire in existence. A vampire, I might add, who just happens to be the biological grandparent of the first known demon-Fae-human hybrid. Believe me when I say, there is power aplenty to be had in this place tonight.”
I remembered Rans explaining that demons of Nigellus’ ilk could draw power from the very fabric of time and space itself. If that was true, Nigellus had a point. A lot of weird shit had just gone down. For him, that weird shit was like an all-you-can-eat banquet.
I nodded and slipped out of the room, grabbing a fuzzy bathrobe from the guest bathroom to help keep the evening chill away while I waited outside. I just hoped Rans would be back soon.
Once again alone on the rooftop patio, I leaned against the waist-high wall and looked out across the city that had raised me. It was beautiful like this, seen from a distance so that all of the flaws and grime disappeared beneath the distant tapestry of twinkling lights. For a while, everything was peaceful, and I hoped that meant Guthrie was still asleep after all.
That hope lasted for another twenty minutes or so.
Then, the screaming started.
TWENTY-ONE
THE NOISE COMING from inside was inhuman. Agonized. The sound someone might make while being tortured to the point of death. It also went on and on. I’d returned to my earlier hunched position against the wall, hugging my knees... but I was strongly considering unwrapping my arms so I could use my hands to cover my ears instead.
When mist swirled across the open space and coalesced into a familiar form, some of the tension left my shoulders. Rans had an insulated messenger bag slung over one shoulder, and I distantly wondered if some poor restaurant delivery guy was going to get his pay docked for losing the thing under the influence of vampiric mesmerism.
“Damn,” he said. “I was worried that he wouldn’t wake up at all. I certainly never expected him to come around this quickly. How long has it been?”
“About fifteen minutes since he started screaming,” I said hoarsely. “Maybe thirty or thirty-five since we noticed the first twitch of movement.”
He nodded. “I’m surprised the police haven’t shown up yet, in that case. Stay here until the noise stops, love. Best if you’re kept well away from him for this part of it.”
I stayed behind, feeling useless as Rans strode to the door and let himself in. The screams grew louder when he opened it, then muffled again as the door closed behind him. Intellectually, I knew that there were several ways in which this day could have gone worse. Rans and I could be dead. Guthrie could be dead. Myrial could have beaten Nigellus and gained more power in Hell. Caspian could have decided to haul me back to Dhuinne for another round of torture.
All that being said—holy shit, I felt awful. I was physically and emotionally exhausted, but my succubus nature had gorged on sexual energy only a couple of hours ago. True, I’d lost some of that magical energy in my tug of war with Myrial afterward, but not all of it. Worst of all, some of that animus had been Fae. If I thought about that fact too closely, it made me feel like I had an army of tiny ants scuttling through my veins.
Hell, I didn’t want Caspian to be on the same planet I was. The idea of having any part of him inside of me was...
I shuddered.
Suffice to say, I didn’t think I’d be getting any sleep tonight, and I really, really needed it. Idly, I
