"Good job, Chami. Thank you."
"It is my pleasure to serve you, milady."
"Are other Monère computer-savvy like you?"
"Not many, no," Chami confessed. "But I found it necessary and useful in my line of work."
They'd aimed Chami at human targets as well, I realized. The Queens had used Chami in his own lethal way, much as Mona Sera had used Gryphon and Sonia's sexual services in her business dealings, eliminating any obstacles that could not be lured with money or seduced with a cold finality.
When we left the orphanage, night was fading and faint light pressed against the thinning darkness. We came out of the building one by one, silent dark shadows. As soon as I hit the street, rounding the block where our limousine was parked, I was jerked into an alley with bruising force.
I'd had no warning because there'd been no heartbeat to warn me of any intruders in the radius around me. The hand that grabbed me was golden-skinned, with sharp, familiar nails. But the bestial face I looked up into was not Halcyon's.
One bronze arm wrapped around my waist, lifting me off my feet, pressing me against my captor with a terrible ease, trapping my arms at my side in an unbreakable grip. The demon was impossibly strong and huge, at least seven feet tall. He'd been expecting us.
Amber and Gryphon came around the corner in a blurred rush. I felt the demon move sharply. One quick downward slash of his hand and Amber's chest was ripped diagonally open, ribs breaking, flesh peeling down all the way so that I saw with vivid horror, his slow, pulsing heart. Warm blood splashed across my face as Amber was flung away. He hit the ground some distance away in a crumpled heap. I opened my mouth to scream but all the breath had been squeezed out of my body by that imprisoning grip. Another swipe and Gryphon was sent flying, demon nails ripping deep furrows in Gryphon's stomach.
I called my silver dagger to my hand, the one I had taken from Mona Louisa, and with a twist of my wrist, drove it into the demon's belly. He hissed with pain and his arm squeezed me so tightly mat I was in true danger of being pinched in half. With an animal snarl, he ripped out the little offending dagger. Invisible bands wrapped my hands to my sides, and stilled my kicking legs. I couldn't move or break free of the invisible mental force he had wrapped around me.
The demon's mouth twisted in a vicious snarl, his eyes becoming fiery red like a wash of angry blood as another knife plunged into his chest from out of nowhere. The demon's hand swept out and grabbed something. Charm came into sudden view, with the demon's claw wrapped tightly about his neck, his arms banded to his side as if invisible forces restrained him, too.
With a savage drooling snarl, the demon sank sharp teeth into Chami's throat. Deep red blood trickled slowly down Chami's white fragile neck as the demon's throat worked strongly. Dear Goddess, I realized with sickening horror, he was drinking Chami's blood, draining him, and growing stronger with the intake. Chami's eyes glazed over and his body fell slack. No! With every ounce of force and will within me, I struggled to break free. My hand moved slightly.
With a snarl of rage, the demon discarded Charm, throwing him away like a toy he no longer desired. The invisible vise holding me secure snapped tight once more. With a simple move, the dagger was pluck out from the demon's chest and tossed aside. Blood oozed sullenly from the demon's two wounds.
Gryphon had picked himself back up and thrown himself forward. The demon stopped Gryphon's rush by simply digging the sharp points of his nails into my throat.
"What do you want?" Gryphon demanded harshly.
"Tell Halcyon that Kadeen has his precious Mixed Blood Queen," the demon growled in a guttural voice, the smell of fresh blood heavy on his breath. "Have him come meet my challenge. Or she dies."
The demon carried me deeper into the alley, into a wall of mist, stepping into a terrible buzzing force of energy that I'd never experienced before or ever hoped to experience again. Hot, searing pain lanced me like a thousand vicious stabbing knives and darkness took me.
Chapter Twenty One
I awoke in twilight darkness, terribly weak, chained naked to the ground, my clothes in sliced tatters around me. The air was like the arid heat of the desert. We were outside, in a courtyard of some sort, a ring of faces in various colors shading from light brown to deep bronze watching me with hostile curiosity a short distance away. It took a moment before I realized what it was about the place that bothered me, besides the demon dead, that is. There were no bright colors. No living green grass, no blue sky, no yellow or red leaves. Everything was muted, dampened, darkened, until there was almost no color at all. The only thing that stood out down here was my very white, living flesh and enhoused within it, my very red, flowing blood.
Kadeen paced beside me, a dark creature of menace with red-stained fangs and bloodied nails. He was different from the other demon dead who rather looked like a tanned version of myself. Kadeen bulged with unnaturally strong muscles, more animal than man. His face was oddly distorted, as if a beast was bursting out from within, his forehead large and bulging, his brow jutting. And those red eyes that glowed with an unnatural luster. He was demon unmasked.
"I was supposed to kill you," Kadeen said, his voice grating like rusty iron, as if it was hard for him to speak in that form. "But I decided to use you instead to lure Halcyon, my enemy, out from his lair. I have been challenging him for the last one hundred years ever since he killed my father in challenge, but he never bothered to accept it, considering me far beneath his notice. But now Halcyon will meet me. You are what he fancies. You are my bait to draw him out to this battle for supremacy."
Kadeen stilled. "He comes." He bent down to me. Bloody teeth gleamed and he snapped his fangs viciously at me. I jumped, unable to help myself, and screamed. The chains held me and I could not break free though I pulled and strained until my wrists and ankles were raw and bleeding.
"Scream again," Kadeen commanded and roughly squeezed my breast with bruising force. His sharp nails pierced through my skin like knives.
I screamed with helpless hatred and rage. Then screamed with horror as Kadeen's teeth ripped my throat. The pain was excruciating. He fed voraciously, drinking my blood. There was a curious buzzing in my head and everything seemed to swirl.
"Enough. I am here." Halcyon's quiet voice pierced the night, jerking the demon from me. Kadeen faced the Demon Prince with fierce hatred and grim satisfaction, my blood dripping from his fangs.
Halcyon looked the same here in Hell, I noticed with a distant floating detachment. White silk shirt, black coat, elegant trousers. That same calm golden face I'd first seen in the forest amid the sunshine. Halcyon glanced at me once then looked away.
"I challenge you." Kadeen grunted, seething with eager ferocity, high and powerful on the fresh blood that I had unwilling donated.
"I accept." With unhurried ease, Halcyon undid his diamond cufflinks, unbuttoned his shirt and stepped gracefully out of his soft, calf-length leather boots.
"How did you know where to find Mona Lisa," Halcyon asked.
"Mona Louisa told me she would come to the orphanage. She wanted me to kill the new Queen so she would get her territory back."
"Mona Louisa again. What a nuisance she is becoming." Halcyon murmured.
It seemed an impossible match. A slim elegant man facing a towering beast. Then that part of Halcyon fell away even as his silk shirt fell to the ground. I felt a rush of energy and Halcyon grew in size and width, swelling with brutish muscles until he stood monstrously large, even taller than Kadeen. Maybe eight feet. His forehead widened and thickened, a vein bulging prominently down the center. His brow jutted and my comfortable lassitude that I had fallen into ripped away. Halcyon's eyes hazed red and his face twisted in a silent snarl, displaying fangs that were ivory white and impressive as hell. Then the brutish rage smoothed out and his eyes returned to that calm midnight black.