She hadn’t used a template and transfer for the design. She never did. The demon worked off images from her customers’ minds, turning thoughts to art, and in Than’s case, taking scenes of death out of his head and relocating them onto his skin, where they could no longer affect him so strongly. He remembered all the death and destruction he’d seen—and participated in—but once they’d been inked onto the canvas of his body, they no longer haunted.
As a bonus, he got off on the process, the pain, the pleasure. Tattoos and piercings were one of the few ecstasies he allowed himself.
“You’re running out of room,” Orelia said, as if he wasn’t aware of that. Fortunately, her unique talent went beyond bringing thoughts to life. She could layer the images and somehow keep them from obliterating each other. The scenes bled together in harmony, each distinct, yet blended.
“Just finish.”
Her long, bony fingers feathered over the design taken from his recent visit to the dying grounds of Pestilence’s Slovenian epidemic. “This one was particularly bad. Your brother has been busy.”
“What have you heard?” Questioning Orelia was his main reason for coming today. He could have held off getting the tat, but he needed intel, and this female, who got into the heads of her customers, had her finger on the underworld’s pulse.
“You know I can’t discuss things I shouldn’t know.”
Standard answer, standard bullshit, and Than didn’t have time for it. “My brother is amassing an army. I want to know where.”
“How would I know?”
Than whipped his arm around behind him and grabbed her thin wrist, wrenching the tattoo gun away from his skin. In one quick move, he flipped over on the table and dragged Orelia close. Like most Silas demons, her skin was so white the veins beneath were visible, her mouth was a mere slash that revealed black, pointed teeth, and her nose was little more than a bump that framed two gaping holes. Unlike most Silas demons, she had tattooed eyes onto her face.
He allowed his fangs to slice down—since she could snag images out of his mind, she was one of the few people who knew what he was and who he hadn’t killed because of it. Not even his brothers and sister knew. This was a secret he’d kept well.
“I don’t have to tell you what I’m capable of,” he said. “You’ve tattooed it on my body for centuries.”
“If I tell you what I know, my life will be in great danger.”
“I guarantee that I’m more dangerous than any of your other customers.”
The muscles in her throat bounced as she swallowed a few times. “But I don’t want to stop the Apocalypse. I want out of Sheoul. The scenes I can draw on humans…” A gruesome smile split her oval face. She’d once said that on humans, her talent was prophetic. She had special, extra-painful tools for them, and once she tattooed their skin with a scene involving them, it came to pass. And Orelia was very creative. And cruel.
“Do you know what it’s like to die at my hands? After the pain ends, your soul becomes part of me. You’ll be trapped in the darkness of my armor with other souls, tormented with their pain and misery. If the Apocalypse happens, you’re the first person I’m coming for, so you won’t have a chance to play with the humans anyway.” He tightened his grip until she whimpered. “So tell me what I want to know.”
“Rumor has it that my people are flocking to the Horun region. But some of my clients have heard tales of growing excitement in Sithbludd.”
“What else?”
“Pestilence has put out a call to all demons… anyone who brings him the head of an Aegi is promised a place at his side after the Apocalypse, and he’s also started quietly paying a bounty for hellhound ears. That’s all I know. I swear it.”
Than released her and flipped over again. “Good. Now finish.” He had some recon to do.
Twenty-three
Ares stepped out of the Harrowgate into the emergency department at Underworld General Hospital, a facility run by demons to care for underworld creatures. Ares used to think it was crazy, but now he was pretty damned glad it existed.
His boots cracked on the obsidian floor as he crossed to the triage desk, where a sleek, catlike Trillah demon was shuffling papers. She sniffed the air and frowned as he approached. “Human?”
“Yes. She needs help. I want Eidolon.”
“He’s busy—”
“Get me the doctor, because if this human dies, I’m going to turn into your worst nightmare.”
She hissed. “This hospital is protected by an antiviolence spell, so your threats are meaningless—”
“I’m not bound by antiviolence spells,” he roared. “Get. Eidolon.”
“Threatening my staff will get you nothing.” The calm voice came from behind him, and he wheeled around to the very demon doctor he’d been demanding to see.
“It wasn’t a threat. If Cara dies, my Seal breaks. You get what I’m saying?”
Eidolon met Ares’s gaze with a sharp, assessing stare few dared to give him, and Ares admitted to a grudging respect for the guy. This was Eidolon’s turf, and he had to do what it took to keep the place safe. Right now, that meant saving Cara’s life, and he knew that. The doctor, who looked as human as Ares, gestured to a nurse and immediately, two people—shapeshifters of some sort—rushed over and guided Ares to a cubicle.
Ares placed Cara gently on the exam table.
“What happened?” Eidolon snapped on some gloves, and the tribal tat that ran from his fingertips all the way to his neck began to glow. Seminus demons, a rare breed of incubi, possessed abilities that were somehow tied to their arm glyphs. Ares just hoped that whatever Eidolon’s gift was, it would be enough to keep Cara alive.
“She’s dying.” Eidolon nodded as he checked her airway and breathing as one of the shapeshifters, a blonde whose name tag identified her as Vladlena, took Cara’s pulse as the other listened to her heart. “Cara bears my agimortus, and it’s killing her. Her death will break my Seal.”
Frowning, Eidolon looked up. “But you said that if Sin had died, Pestilence’s Seal wouldn’t break.”
“Different kind of agimortus.” Ares gripped Cara’s hand. “And you should know that she’s bonded to a hellhound.”
Eidolon paused as he reached for a pair of shears. “Interesting. Where’s the hellhound?”
“I don’t know.”
“So the animal could be injured?” Eidolon sliced Cara’s blouse up the middle, and a terrible, possessive pain rent Ares apart. Everyone froze, and he must have made some hellacious noise, because they were staring at him as if he’d just bitten the horns off a Croix viper.
“Ah… sorry.” He clenched his fists at his sides, hoping that would keep them from striking out. This was weird, though; he’d never been so possessive of a female in his life. “I’m not usually… it’s just…” God, he was never a stuttering fool, either.
“It’s okay,” Eidolon said wryly. “We get the don’t-touch-my-mate thing around here.”
“She’s not my mate.” Sure, he’d thought of her as his, but the word “mate” implied permanence. Something he and Cara wouldn’t have.
“Riiight.” Eidolon nodded sagely, but real quick Ares figured out that the demon was being a sarcastic ass. “So you always tell doctors you’re going to rip their heads off and decorate your mantel with them then?”
He’d said that? Jesus. Okay, he needed to clear his head, and fast. “Just do what you have to do.”
Very slowly, Eidolon peeled open Cara’s shirt, and Ares started to hyperventilate. Didn’t matter that the guy was a medical professional. He was looking at Ares’s woman. His… mate. Fuck.
He concentrated on stroking Cara’s hand with his thumb, concentrated on not going all serial killer on everyone in the room. And it only got worse when Eidolon cut off her pants.
“She’s got a lot of abrasions and contusions,” Eidolon said, as he palpated her belly.
“Yeah.” Ares’s voice was scratchy. Wrecked. “She was… she took a beating.” And fuck-oh-fuck, the agimortus had lightened more, was the pale pink of a healing scar.
Eidolon fingered one of the bruises, and his tattoo lit up. The bruise shrank and lightened, but Eidolon cursed. “That should have healed it completely.” He stripped off his gloves. “She doesn’t seem to have any serious injuries, but I’ll call in my brother. Shade can check her organ functions.” He covered her with a sheet. “I’ll be right back.”
The other staff members left with the doctor, leaving Ares alone with Cara. He didn’t release her hand—wouldn’t release it. “Cara? Sweetheart? Wake up.”
Her eyelashes fluttered, but didn’t open. “What happened?” Her voice was weak, barely there, and Ares wanted to both shout with excitement that at least she was awake, and scream with frustration that she sounded awful.
“You passed out. We’re in a hospital. Cara, listen to me. I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have walked away from you like that. I was being selfish, and you didn’t deserve it.”
Her eyes opened, and he hoped that all his years of military conditioning kept his shock from showing on his face. They were sunken, bloodshot, and the beautiful clear blue-green had gone murky, from sea-colored to something resembling a bog. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I saw Hal. He was in a pit. There was blood. A lot of it. And… fighting.”
“Shh.” Ares squeezed her hand. “We’ll get him. You need to rest. Conserve your energy.”
She was going to argue; he knew it. But Eidolon returned with a demon in a black paramedic uniform, one who resembled Eidolon so closely that Ares knew the guy was his brother.
“This is Shade,” Eidolon said, and nodded at Cara. “Can he examine you?”
She slid Ares a glance, clearly unsure about all of this. He couldn’t blame her. Human hospitals were unpleasant enough, but this one, with its black floors, gray walls covered with incantations scrawled in blood, and chains hanging from the ceiling, went well beyond unpleasant and right into disturbing. That was before you looked into the staff made up of demons, vampires, and shapeshifters.
“It’s okay, Cara. These are good guys.”
Utter trust eased her expression, and kicked him in the gut. “Okay, then.” She offered Shade a trembly smile. “Do it.”
Shade brushed back his shoulder-length dark hair and gently took her wrist. The markings on his right arm lit up, and his brow furrowed in concentration. Within a few seconds, Cara’s color had started to come back, her cheeks pinking up, her lips plumping, and even her eyes had returned to normal. By the time Shade released her, she looked almost as healthy as she had when he’d first met her.
“What did you do?” Cara’s voice was full of wonder as she looked down at her arms and hands.
“I can optimize bodily functions.” He met Ares’s gaze. “If you hadn’t brought her in, she’d have been dead within the hour.”
Ares swallowed. Hard. “And now?”
“Maybe we should talk outside.”
“No.” Cara eyed each of them in turn. “It’s my life, and I deserve to know what’s going on.”
Shade shrugged. “Then I’ll tell you that your organs are failing. It’s as if you’ve got the plumbing of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old human. I was able to get everything working well again, but it’s like you’re a slow drain. I filled up the sink, but the plug’s broken, so you’re still leaking.”
“How much time?” she asked, and thank God she had, because Ares hadn’t found the strength to do it.
“Six hours. Give or take an hour.” Shade jammed his hands in his pockets. “I can probably buy you another hour if I repeat what I just did, but after that…”
After that, Cara died, and Ares turned into the world’s worst nightmare.
“We won’t give up,” Eidolon said. “We have the best staff and best researchers around. We’ll look for a solution. Hit the call button if you need us.” He left with Shade just as Limos and Thanatos arrived.
Limos waited until the two demons were out of earshot to talk. “I got a text from Kynan. No details, but he’s on his way now. And Than might have a lead on where Pestilence is gathering his people. If we can find him, we might find the hellhound.”
Cara struggled to sit up. “We have to help him.”
“The good news,” Ares said, as if any of this was good, “is that the boost Shade gave you will affect Hal, too. You bought him some time.”
Near the triage desk, the Harrowgate flashed, and Kynan stepped out. In one hand he had a pink, frilly bag covered in teddy bears, and in his other hand was a leather-wrapped parcel. He strode over to Ares and planted the package in Ares’s hand. “The dagger.”
Ares exhaled in a relieved rush, but he couldn’t let himself get excited. They still had to find Pestilence, and they only had six hours to do it. “Thanks.”
Kynan cleared his throat. “How’s Cara doing?”
Dying. “We’re taking care of her.” The generic answer was all Ares could muster.
As Kynan shifted his weight, the rattle of a baby toy was very out of place. New life meeting impending death. “We’ve intercepted disturbing underworld chatter. The demons searching for Cara are talking about Satan’s bride. Is she part of some prophecy we don’t know about?”