It carried with it the faint scent of decay and decomposition, not of meat, but of vegetation. The smell was pungent, but not revolting. I breathed it in, feeling dizzy. I forced my eyes open—or thought I did—but I couldn’t seem to move. Fear slalomed through me like an Olympic event. The heaviness all around us increased.
Shit, we hadn’t accomplished anything at all by staying. It would devour the bones and this time, us too. The futility enraged me; I couldn’t even turn my head to see if Chance was all right. If anything happened to him because he’d wanted to protect me . . . damn. I should have insisted he go with the others. He was helpless without his luck, and I should have thought of that.
“What do you want?” I managed to push the words past numb lips.
Tendrils so cold they burnt brushed my lips and cheeks in an unholy caress. I couldn’t sense malice in the touch, but I was damn near freezing to death. It was possible my brain no longer functioned at peak efficiency.
“This is my dominion, darling child.”
With an inward shudder, I recognized the voice from the last time. Any last shred of uncertainty dissolved. I imagined a certain cloying fondness in the endearment it spoke, and I remembered the dark thing had claimed to know my mother.
“I was granted this territory in a pact I have honored even when others have not. So what do I want? I want redress.”
Pact. The word resonated, lending unmistakable significance. It confirmed what I half suspected when first we discovered Chance’s luck didn’t work here.
“Who made the pact?” As the dark mist roiled away from me, it grew easier to speak. I even managed to turn my head, but Chance seemed to be asleep. I told myself not to make any sudden moves. This thing might take pleasure in talking to me—and then it might decide it would enjoy rending me limb from limb. Best not to provoke it.
“The twelve,” it said, “long since gone to dust.”
If they’d long since gone to dust, how did they manage to burn down our house? I wouldn’t start with that, though. Part of me couldn’t believe I was sitting there, talking to the thing, but I didn’t have much choice. Though I could speak and turn my head, I still couldn’t get up. Certainly I couldn’t run, not with Chance comatose.
Since it seemed to be in an expansive mood—and who knew how long that would last—I asked the obvious question. “Why did you have my mother’s necklace?”
Icy phantom fingers lingered at my throat. I imagined it tracing the curls and curves of the flower pentacle and tried to suppress a shiver.
“I was fond of her,” it answered at length. “I had a forest creature bring it to me. I kept it for you. . . . I remember you, darling child. She asked me to keep you safe.”
She asked. It could only mean Cherie Solomon, my mother.
Demons lied. It was what they did. So I don’t know why the words rocked me so much. I should have been able to shake them off, dismiss them as false. Instead, they ate into my psyche. Perhaps it was because I’d recently seen how little Chance knew his own mother. No matter how much we loved, how could we ever truly know anyone else’s heart?
“How . . .” I cleared my throat and started again. “How did you know her?”
“She left gifts sometimes. She knew I was lonely.” The earth itself shivered a little with the last word.
Could that be true? Had my mother been kind enough even to take pity on an exiled demon? Well, exiled or bound. It said it was granted these woods as its territory, but in exchange for what? What were the terms of the agreement? If I thought it would answer honestly, I might ask.
Instead, I asked something that had been bugging me. “How come you let us go before?”
“Darling child, I would never harm you.”
Huh? “Why not?”
Its amusement rippled all around me. “Have you not guessed? Hadn’t you noticed the hell fire that powers your rather unusual gift?”
Oh, Jesus. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like this.
“Corine . . . I am your father.”
“Bullshit!” I might not remember much about Albie Solomon, but I was sure he hadn’t been a demon. Maybe he couldn’t put up with being tied down or my mother’s eccentricities, but he hadn’t possessed a drop of infernal blood. I’d stake my soul on it.
Well, maybe not literally . . .
“Kidding. I’m kidding. I always wanted to say that.” To my astonishment, the dark mist coalesced into the shape of a small man, not much taller than me. He hunkered down next to me. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. “Between you and me, little one, I get tired of the whole I-will-devour-your-soul routine. Sure, I feed off the visceral terror, but where’s the spontaneity, you know?”
“Uh, right,” I said. “So what’s your name?”
He answered scornfully, “Do you think I was summoned yesterday? First I give you my name and we’re talking and having a good time; then you bind me to something worse than this forest. Forget it. You can call me Maury.”
I stifled a laugh. “Okay then, Maury. Did you kill this kid?”
The demon seemed affronted. “Certainly not.”
I raised a brow, waiting. Maybe that was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. I knew enough about demons to be sure they told you whatever they thought you wanted to hear.
“He might’ve been fleeing from me in fear,” the demon admitted, after a lengthy pause, “but the fall killed him.”
Semantics. No wonder attorneys and demons got along so well.
In quasi-human form, the bane of my existence was short and dumpy, a little round about the middle. He had bushy salt-and-pepper hair and robust sideburns. The demon could’ve easily been someone’s uncle. And I realized I wasn’t scared anymore, not even a little bit. That could’ve been a failure of some self-preservation instinct, but I was inclined to believe the thing didn’t mean me any harm.