Demon from the Dark

His lips thinned. Then, with a wary glance upward, he quickly crouched in the dirt, drawing three circles in an arc with lines between them. Once done, he pointed at the indistinct sun.

'Okay. I think I'm with you. Morning, noon, and dusk. This represents a day?'

He held up two fingers.

'Two days? Without biting? No dice, demon.' She held up eight fingers.

With a warning growl, he held up five.

Perfect. When she nodded, he held his hand over his chest, his expression pained. He'd just sworn he wouldn't bite her. Though it was obviously a huge concession for him.

Could she trust his vow? In her situation, she had to trust this demon to a degree, had to believe he wouldn't bite her.

Her next condition wouldn't be so easy. 'No sex.'

Not understanding, he shrugged, then motioned for her to hurry.

How to say sex? How to mime sex? 'Ah, gods, are you really going to make me do this hand gesture?' She made an okay sign with one hand, then threaded the forefinger from her other hand through it.

His eyes widening, he nodded emphatically.

Until she did it again while saying, 'Noooo sex. NO.'

He growled, pounding his fist over his heart again.

'Yes, I know I'm ... yours. But you're too strong.' She made a muscleman arm, pointing at her bicep, then pointing at him.

'Fortis?' he said.

'Latin?' I suck at Latin. Carrow just memorized it for spells or used it for fun. More than once, she'd slurred, Carrowicus much drunkicus or Hot-assicus in my greedy handsicus.

But she thought fortis meant strong. Maybe. 'You'—she pointed at him—'are fortis ... maximus?'

His chin went up, and he nodded arrogantly, as if saying, Tell me something I don't know.

She scooped up a twig, pointing to herself, saying, 'Me.' Then she broke the twig.

He gave another nod of understanding, and again she noted the cunning in his eyes.

'So nooo sex.'

Before she could extract that promise, a roar from above sounded. 'Oh, shit.' With a gulp, she sidled up to him. 'And we're off!'

Chapter 12

This hike is the most enlightening one of my life, Carrow thought as they wended their way up the mountain.

For instance, in the last hour she'd learned how sardonic a lift of a demon's dirty brow could be—when she'd refused to let him carry her as they'd dodged whatever had been approaching. And she'd come to understand how important decapitated heads were.

He'd swiftly collected those monsters' heads, tying them together with a piece of the rope she'd hoped never to see again, then strung them over his shoulder. Periodically, he offered his catch to her.

'No, no, I have a pair just like them at home,' she'd said. 'I would just regift them.' Earlier when he'd thrown that ghoul's head to her, then rolled it to her feet, had it been his idea of a gift? A vemon version of a dozen red roses, meant not to intimidate but to signal his interest and intent?

On the way to his 'home,' he guided her this way and that, pointing out more of his hidden traps. She used the time to assimilate all that had happened, now that her anger was cooling.

Carrow was one of those people who had bursts of temper, then later scratched their heads, wondering, What exactly was I so pissed about? Yes, he'd bitten her—twice—against her wishes, but she did feel gratitude that he'd saved her life. She didn't know of another male who could've fended off two of those monster X creatures then gotten her away unscathed.

She'd never seen a monster like that before, had never heard of one in all the Lore. When she grappled with the question of what it was, her sharply honed scientifical mind deduced one answer: manbearpig. An amalgam, something made by sticking the parts together instead of melding them—just like the vemon.

If a demon and a vampire mated, their offspring would be unique but in harmony, like a Labrador retriever crossed with a poodle. Voila, labradoodle! But a vemon was a made creature, as if one took the front half of the Lab and jammed it onto the back half of the poodle.

In other words, wrong.

Maybe that was why Slaine couldn't trace. Though both vampires and demons had that innate ability, vampires could trace easily while demons had to study and train to. Perhaps the two different natures clashed as they tried to do the same thing in totally disparate ways.

She gazed up at him from under a sand-coated curl. 'Is that why you can't trace?' she asked him. 'The vemon that terrorized New Orleans could teleport. Maybe you just can't puzzle out how?' He frowned at her. 'I bet you used to be able to. Must suck not to anymore.'

Now that they were seemingly out of danger, for some reason Carrow found herself talking to him. Though she knew he couldn't understand her, she asked him questions, then conjectured answers out loud. She made observations about the terrain, the declining weather.

Occasionally he shrugged without interest.

'I should name you Wilson the Volleyball. You understand as much as Wilson did and respond as infrequently. What's that?' She cupped her ear as if the demon had spoken. 'No, no, you're right, Wilson was more hygienic.'

She didn't know why she found it so pleasing to talk at Slaine—her dirty, befanged protector—but there it was. 'Once I get back ...' She trailed off.

When he gave her a questioning glance over his shoulder, she sighed. 'Well, things are going to have to change. With me. Right now, if the Andoain coven were The Love Boat, I'd be a mix between Julie the recreation chick and bartender Isaac.'

Carrow had long been connected in the city, able to uncover all the sins in New Orleans, seeding revelry, then harvesting power from it.

'Now all that's going to be different.' She'd have to budget her spells, not use them for frivolous things like better parking places or her fledgling attempts at mind control.

Excitement lacing her tone, she said, 'I think I'm going to be ready for a kid after this. If I'd been immersed in my old life when this happened, I probably would've shirked my responsibilities.' As her parents had taught her. 'But after this adventure, anything will feel easy. Even raising a potentially murderous seven-year-old with control issues.'

The demon seemed really keyed up, as if Carrow's chitchat was bothering him. No, that couldn't be right. She wasn't Carrow 'Squeaky' Graie. She'd always been told she had a bedroom voice that men found pleasing.

He pointed at her and asked, 'Demonish?'

'Do I speak Demonish?'

He nodded.

'Yeah, a little,' she answered, then sounded out a few words, asking for some fermented demon brew, their beverage of choice.

In an instant, his body shot through with tension, and he ran a palm over one of his horns. Gaze dipping to her lips, he swallowed.

His reaction was so thunderstruck, she suddenly grasped that her demon drinking buddies had taught her