Strife: Hidden Book Four Read online

  I fought the urge to scrub myself. It was something I was working on. I had enough to be freaked out about without my own mind playing traitor. And it never helped. I’d just start scrubbing, and scrub harder and harder as it became apparent that I’d never feel clean. If I was in the wrong mood, I’d break down crying.

  I was tired of crying. I was tired of being afraid of myself, of fearing what would happen if I screwed up. I shook the thought away as soon as I had it, got out of the shower and pulled on some terry pajama pants and a sleep tank. I dried my hair with a towel, then went into my room and sat in the center of my bed. I grabbed my phone off of the nightstand and saw that there was a text from Nain.

  Call me when you get a chance. N.

  I hit his number and waited through two rings.

  “Hey,” he said, and the sound of his voice made my stomach flip, which was happening more often of late.

  “Hey.”

  “Were you kicking ass or something? I called twice.”

  “I was in the shower.”

  Silence.

  “But I was kicking ass before that. Listen.” And I told him about the demons, about how weak and stupid they were. Then I told him about E and I getting ambushed. “The ones who attacked us were one group out of a much bigger one. This was an assignment. I saw in his head that there was a strong demon who gave them the order.”

  “So they’re organized, like we thought,” he said.

  “But more so than I realized. Bigger.”

  He didn’t respond, and silence stretched between us for several seconds. “Well it sounds like you already know what I was calling to tell you. Brennan and I ran into a group tonight. Pretty much same as you, mixed demons, vamps, and shifters. There were only seven of them though.”

  “Where?”

  “Seven and Kelly area. I kept one alive but he became useless after a while.”

  I didn’t need to ask him what he meant. Nain was experienced in trying to force beings to talk. I’d listened as he’d tortured a vampire for information once, and I still couldn’t quite get the screams out of my mind.

  “This is a mess,” I said. “I told my team to make sure they don’t go out alone.”

  “You too,” he said.

  “No, not me. Them. The mortal ones,” I said, irritated.

  “You shouldn’t go out alone either. I want to start patrolling together.”

  “Oh, hell no,” I said, and I heard him huff in irritation.

  “We’ll hit the bad areas. You know how much damage the two of us can do together.”

  “Oh, we’re not rehashing our marriage now, dear,” I said.

  “Ha ha,” he grumbled. “I’m serious.”

  “I think that’s a bad idea,” I said.

  “We’re full of bad ideas. What else is new?”

  I didn’t answer. Maybe he’d forget about it eventually.

  Right. As if that would ever happen.

  “I was thinking about you earlier when we faced the house full of demons,” I said.

  “Was there a piano there?” he asked, and I blushed immediately. The first time we’d been together, he’d taken me against the side of a grand piano, and he knew as well as I did that I couldn’t look at a piano without thinking of him.

  “Oh, you’re just hilarious. No,” I said. “I was thinking about demon shit, and how you never see demon kids. Why not?”

  He didn't answer right away.

  “I mean, do demon women not get pregnant easily?” I asked, trying to urge him on.

  “They don’t. We’re creatures of the Nether, just like the Furies and Guardians and all that. A little less so. We do reproduce, but it’s rare, and that’s probably a good thing. We live a really long time, and if we reproduced easily, we’d overrun everything.”

  “That makes sense. So there are demon kids out there somewhere?”

  “Most of them are probably born in the Nether. That’s where most demons live anyway. But even those that are born don’t have much of a chance at survival.”

  “Why not?”

  “Think about the demons you know, Molls. Me included,” he said. “Do you think any of us would make great parents? Demon kids rarely make it out of toddlerhood.”

  My jaw dropped in disgust. “They kill their own kids?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes, they just don’t care what happens and the kid wanders off. Sometimes they toss it out when they get tired of all the needy shit.”

  “That is… wow,” I said. “What about your parents?” Then I thought. “Wait. Where are you? Can you even talk now?”

  “I can talk. I’m driving home from Jones’ house.”

  “Okay.”

  “I haven’t seen my parents since I was maybe five or so. My father was a strong bastard. Violent as hell,” he said. “He and my mother weren’t bonded. They really didn’t give a fuck about one another either way. And one day, she just got bored of playing mother and putting up with his fists, and she took off. And he never wanted a kid in the first place, so he gave me a choice: take off or let him finish me. I decided to leave.”

  “Where did you go?” I asked as I settled myself under the covers. I closed my eyes and let his voice wash over me, even if the story he was telling wasn’t a soothing one.

  “I just wandered. Stole food when I had to. Killed when I felt weak.”

  “Demons start killing that young?” I asked.

  “I did. The ones that are alone do, or they end up dead at the hands of another demon.”

  “And then what?”

  “When I was in my twenties, I ran into Astaroth. You know the rest.”

  I stayed silent. “Demons aren’t good parents, yet you managed to raise several kids. Stone, Brennan, Veronica, George,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I was bad at it. They obeyed me, because they were afraid of me and they had nowhere else to go. I spent plenty of time wanting to kill them. And I never had a baby around, and I’ll tell you that if I had the thing wouldn’t have survived it. You have any idea how much babies fucking cry? That’s all Sean does. Cry and shit.”

  I laughed. “You like Sean,” I said, knowing it was true.

  “I like him as long as he’s not crying which is almost never,” he grumbled. “Someday, he’ll be strong and useful.”

  “He’s cute,” I said.

  “Babies look like bald little aliens,” he said. “They are not cute.”

  “Grumpy old man.”

  “Did that answer your question?” he asked.

  “Yep. Demons are shitty parents and you’ve always been a badass. Got it,” I said, and it ended on a yawn.

  “Are you sleepy? Where’s your mom and dad?”

  “Mom’s on her way,” I said.

  “Oh. Okay.” Was that disappointment in his voice? “Well stay on the phone with me until she gets there.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter, Nain,” I said.

  “You need something, woman,” he muttered, and I didn’t answer. Doing so would only send the conversation in a direction I wasn’t ready for it to take.

  “Tell me what else happened today,” I said. So he did, telling me about Stone and Ada and how they were starting to talk about maybe getting married, and about how the assistant Ada had insisted he hire had ended up quitting after seeing one too many scary things in her time at the loft. I kept my opinion about that to myself. I was glad she was gone. She was too pretty. Long red hair, curvy. Big boobs.

  And why the hell did I even care?

  “She won’t talk?”

  “Ada used a spell to erase most of what she knew. She won’t even remember she’s ever been there.”

  “Good.”

  “You didn’t like her,” he said.

  “I think you hired her maybe for the wrong reasons,” I said.

  “Yeah? What are those?”

  “I can think of two,” I said, and he laughed.

  “You think I hired her for her tits?”

  I didn'
t answer.

  “Were you jealous?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t jealous. I just never understood why of anyone you could have hired, you hired a freaking Normal to help you out. Those were the only two assets I could imagine.”

  “I hired her because Ada is friends with her aunt and she likes her. I didn’t especially want or need an assistant. As far as her assets, I prefer nice round, perky ones that fit in my palms. Yours come to mind.”

  My entire body flushed, and I took a deep breath, both to calm myself and in relief. “My mom is here,” I said.

  “Too bad. That was just starting to get interesting,” he said. “Talk to you tomorrow.” And then he hung up, and I sat staring at the phone. My mom knocked and I let her in, relieved to have something to think about other than my husband. Ex-husband.

  Obviously.

  Chapter Eight

  I pulled up outside of the loft and idled, waiting for Nain. I was still irritated about this whole thing. I mean, I understood why we were doing this. As the two strongest people on our teams, we not only had the best chance of destroying Strife or Terror, but we’d also be likely to draw them out. It just pissed me off that I had to spend time with Nain today, of all days.

  I looked toward the loft, waiting. There was no point in honking the horn or calling. He could feel me, the same way I could feel his presence, and that had nothing to do with bonds anymore. It had to do with the fact that we were both beings of the Nether, and we were both pretty powerful. When we’d first met, the amount of power swirling around the demon had nearly made me nauseous. And he’d said the same about me. And now he was even more powerful than he’d been before, thanks to my blood in his veins and the fact that the enchantment that had stolen some of his power from him had broken upon his death.

  His death. Which had happened on a night almost exactly like this one, five years ago to the day. And him being alive, him walking toward me, the way he was at that moment, didn’t do anything to erase the memories of that night.

  I didn’t even want to think about him, let alone sit in a car with him for four hours on patrol.

  He climbed into the passenger seat, and as soon as his door was closed, I pulled away from the curb.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him, keeping my eyes straight ahead.

  “Downtown, see if we can dig up anything about the trouble there. If it seems quiet, then we’ll head toward the riverfront.”

  I nodded and maneuvered the car through the mostly-empty streets. Weeknights downtown weren’t exactly jumping. There were a few bars and restaurants open, but it was nothing like the way it was during the day when it was bustling with cars and pedestrians, people sitting on the benches and edges of the planters along the streets. As we drove, I clicked the radio on, making it loud enough that I wouldn’t be expected to talk to him. And how he could sit there, acting like nothing was going on made me want to kick his ass.

  He was watching me. I could feel his gaze on me, and I forced myself not to look at him. We should have taken his truck. My car felt way too goddamn small with him in it.

  I ended up parking near Campus Martius (another stupid memory. We’d met in nearly that exact spot.) It was a convenient enough place and we could cover a lot of the surrounding area on foot and then circle back to the car when we were done.

  We got out of the car and started walking down Woodward. The imps slipped through the shadows, scouting, watching out for us. It was hard for me, even after all the time I’d spent in the city, not to still be a little mesmerized by the skyscrapers downtown, by the way looking up made me feel dizzy and tiny. Insignificant. I liked it. I know some people feel uncomfortable when reminded how small they are. It was nice to feel small once in a while, and I could pretend that the weight of the world wasn’t on my shoulders.

  It would have been a more enjoyable stroll if I’d had different company.

  We walked in silence. I had my shields down, trying to hear any threatening thoughts. I paid attention, trying to feel any demonic or immortal power signatures nearby.

  After a while, we started snaking through other streets, the traffic thinner here, even more deserted. We walked for at least an hour, and I didn’t pick up a single thing.

  “This is a waste of time. If we want to catch Terror, if it’s even her doing this, we’re going to have to be here during the day. She’s preying on people going about their business, and whoever she has working for her is depending on the chaos and noise down here during the day to shield what they’re doing,” I said.

  “We can check out RiverWalk and Hart Plaza,” he said.

  “Fine.”

  We started walking back toward Campus Martius.

  “What’s your problem tonight?” he finally said.

  I glared at him for a second, then looked straight ahead. “Nothing.”

  “You’re supposed to be keeping yourself calm. You don’t look calm. You look like you’re going to rip someone’s fucking head off. Probably mine.”

  “Mind your own business, Nain,” I muttered.

  “You are my business, Molls.”

  I didn’t answer. I wanted to hit him so bad my body ached from holding myself back from it. We got back in my car and I drove toward the Renaissance Center, paid for parking on the street. The imps stayed with the car this time, and Nain and I walked toward the riverfront. We’d had a few reports of trouble here, mostly Normals acting up, which seemed a lot like it could have been Strife or Terror’s influence. The RiverWalk was pretty well policed, especially near the Rennaissance Center. Nain and I seemed to be of one mind, walking automatically in the direction of Hart Plaza. That stretch of the RiverWalk tended to be more deserted, especially at night.

  We were nearly at Hart Plaza when I felt it: a creeping, tickling sense of fear surrounding me, nearly suffocating me. I glanced at Nain, saw him looking around.

  You feel this? he asked in my mind

  Yeah. This must be Terror.

  As if to punctuate my words, screams erupted from Hart Plaza, and Nain and I ran there. The Plaza wasn’t crowded, but it was its usual mix of skaters and loiterers. There were maybe fifteen other people in the plaza, and they were herded into a small group, all of them looking around as if waiting for an attack.

  That right there told you all you needed to know, made it clear that something was wrong. Sticking to your own and minding your own business were pretty much par for the course around here. If a bunch of strangers were herding together for safety, that was a pretty clear sign something was wrong.

  And that was when I felt it. Strength. Immortal, ancient power. She materialized not a foot away from Nain and swung a huge, medieval-looking black ax at his head. I shoved him away just in time, and her blade just missed his throat.

  Get them out of here. Their fear is feeding her, I told Nain, and he started running toward the Normals, shouting that they needed to leave. I knew him. He’d order, and then he’d threaten and anyone stupid enough to try to resist would see a little of his demon and they’d run. I couldn't focus on that, though, because right then Terror was swinging her ax at me. I ducked. I was trying not to use my powers, because I didn’t know how long this would go on and weakening myself early, putting myself in pain, would only be trouble for me the longer it went on.

  She was strong. She’d been feeding well in all of the fear she’d caused in this part of the city over the past several months.

  As I spun around, I had a moment to look toward where the Normals had been. They were running, Nain shouting after them to go, fast.

  Once I was sure no one was watching, I held my hand out, and my sword appeared, black flames leaping along its thin blade.

  “Pretty toy, little Fury. A bit refined for my taste, though,” Terror said. Her voice was soft, almost delicate. She didn’t look the way you’d expect “Terror” to look. She looked like a Disney princess; big blue eyes, rosy skin. Long, wavy blond hair cascading down her back in waves. She wore jeans and a pale blue sw
eater. Really, the only thing that would mark her as anything other than a stupidly gorgeous human were the sharp, razor-like teeth she bared at me as I swung the sword at her. That, and the fingernails that looked more like claws than nails.

  She darted away from my blade, practically pirouetting and reaching my left side. She wound up to swing again, and I remembered my lessons with Athena; as she opened herself up to swing, I sliced forward with my sword and ended up getting her across the ribcage, a slash of red appearing on her light blue top. She hissed, and it was more in anger than pain.

  “I was playing nice, Fury,” she said. “But fine. We’ll do it your way.” And then she rushed me, ax raised, and I readied myself for it. At the last second, the ax disappeared, and she held a knife, which she maneuvered with almost dizzying speed. I ducked away from her, but she still caught my shoulder, and I felt the tip of the knife hit bone as she stabbed downward.

  I grunted in pain, trying to ignore it. At least it had been my left arm.

  Nain was nearby, watching, looking for opportunities to jump in.

  Stay back, I ordered him, and felt a torrent of rage and irritation come from him.

  Fuck that Molly. You’re already bleeding.

  So is she. Stay back.

  She was everywhere, using the knives, then a mace (seriously? A goddamned mace), swinging it above her head and then at me, nearly taking my head off as I tried to avoid her.

  “Come on little Fury. Fear me. I can only imagine what your fear would do for me,” she said, swinging at me again.

  Shows how much she knows about me. The more she fought me, the angrier I got. There’s no room for fear when I’m pissed off. It’s a Nether thing, maybe. Or maybe it’s just me. But my rage is all-consuming, and there is no room for anything else. She was doing a good job of helping me get my rage on.

  I slashed out with the sword, catching her forearm, the flames of my blade sizzling as they met flesh. She shouted in pain.