Page 15 of Irreverent (The Marked Saga #7)

A light mist of rain dotted my shoulders as I followed Trace and the two demons outside to the back of the building, away from prying eyes and witnesses. The way I saw it, this was going to go down one of two ways: either they were going to give us some information about what was going on with Nikki and her legion of demon followers, or we were going to beat them both to death. Either way, I was going to walk away from here with something good.

“Let it be known that I offered to do this the nice and easy way,”

announced Shorty, his back still turned to us as he leisurely glanced around the lot and then turned to face us. There wasn’t a fleck of fear in his eyes. “But I will be delivering the Reaper to Mistress, one way or the other.”

“Yeah, I really wouldn’t count on it,”

I muttered as I moved up beside Trace.

“And who’s going to stop me, little girl? You?”

he asked, laughing as his beady eyes sized me up.

How he had the balls to call me little girl when the idiot barely reached my chin was beyond me. This guy had a serious case of Short Man Syndrome, and it was starting to grind on my nerves.

“I mean, I am a Slayer,”

I answered casually, which consequently shut him right the hell up.

“But that’s not all you are, is it?”

asked Trace as though he didn’t know the answer to that.

“You caught me.”

I smiled up at my soulmate and then turned my focus back to the demons in front of us. “I also happen to be the Daughter of Hades. You know, the one that put ol’ daddy Luce back in his grave.”

Their eyes immediately blackened as their demon auras pushed to the surface.

“Ahh. So, you do know me.”

I slapped a hand against my knee as Trace laughed.

He appeared to be enjoying the show as much as I was enjoying giving it.

“Listen now. We don’t want any problems with you,”

said Shorty, holding up his palms as the two of them took a generous step back from us. “We only came here to deliver a message to the Reaper.”

“Oh, of course. Totally.”

I waved it off like it was no big deal. “But see, it turns out we have a little message of our own to deliver now.”

The two demons exchanged looks.

“So, here’s how it’s going to go,”

I started calmly as I pulled out my Sword of Angelus and held it tightly to my side. “You’re going to answer a few questions for us and when I’m satisfied that you’ve told me everything there is to know, you can run along and deliver our message to Mistress Bitchface.”

Shorty’s mouth twitched as though he wanted to do or say something about my new nickname for Nikki, but then thought better of it. Maybe there was a brain cell in that head of his after all.

“How many demons are staying with Nikki right now?”

Shorty sneered and then shook his head.

Strike one. “How close is she to giving birth?”

I went on unbothered.

He crossed his arms. “All will reveal itself in due time.”

“Yeah. I’m going to need a more specific date than that.”

“Daughter of Hades or not, I would sooner die that betray my Legion,”

gritted Shorty while his sidekick nodded beside him.

“That’s already in the books,”

answered Trace as he cracked his neck and readied himself. “This is about whether or not we’re going to show you any mercy while doing it.”

“Mercy?”

Shorty rasped out a laugh, deciding now was the time to bring back some of that bravado from earlier. But it was too late. I’d already seen the fear in his eyes; the hesitation when he’d finally understood who he was dealing with. “Mercy is not needed for those who walk with the Dark One. With Destiny. What is meant to be will become whether you bow to its will or not.”

“Yeah, yeah. Tell me something I don’t know,”

I said as I threw my blade straight through the air, quick as a wink and landed it square in the middle of Shorty’s chest.

His stunned eyes widened for a fraction of a second before rolling back into his head as his body slammed onto the pavement like a wet bag of spuds. Blowing out an irritated breath, I walked over to his dead body and yanked my sword from his chest, making a sour face at the sound of blood and organ tissue flexing as it released my blade.

Tall Guy stood there gaping back and forth between me and his dead demon friend. It was clear he was having a hard time catching up with what the hell just happened.

“What was that about?”

asked Trace, confusion drawing his brows together. Apparently, the demon wasn’t the only one not following. “I thought we were going to get some information from them?”

“He was really getting on my nerves,”

I said as I tried to shake off some of the blood and tissue from my sword. “He wasn’t going to talk anyway.”

“I could have made him talk,”

answered Trace, a hint of irritation in his voice like he had been looking forward to it.

“Trust me. I know his type. The cause meant more to him than his life. He wasn’t going to say anything.”

My focus slid back to Tall Guy as I inspected him a little more closely. “What about you, hm? You feeling chatty tonight?”

“Me? No. I don’t know anything. I’m just a low-level demon,”

he said, shaking his head nervously. “She sent me as backup. Nothing more.”

“But you’ve been inside the house, right?”

I tilted my head to examine him. “How many demons would you say are there on any given night?”

“I couldn’t say—”

“Try,”

I pushed and then gave him a sweet smile.

His gaze traipsed over my face and then dropped to the bloody knife in my hand. “I don’t know…maybe a dozen.”

“Including you two?”

He shook his head from side to side.

“Are more coming?”

I went on, content to see a nice opening in our lines of communication.

“I don’t know anything. I swear on the Dark Prince himself.”

Well, that was rich. “If you had to venture a guess?” I pushed.

He shook his head nervously as tiny beads of sweat trickled down his forehead from the gesture. “You’re going to kill me whether I talk or not. Why should I tell you anything?”

“Good point,”

said Trace as he folded his arms across his chest, looking as though he were eager to make good on it.

I, on the other hand, knew I needed to be smart about this if I wanted to keep him talking. “We could make a deal,”

I offered, taking a cautious step toward him. “You tell us what we want to know, and we let you go.”

“And I’m just supposed to take your word for that?”

he huffed out a laugh at the absurdity of it.

I thought about it for a moment and then asked, “Do you want to die for your cause?”

It was a genuine question, and I knew the answer even before he gave it. I could see it in his hesitation. In the way his lips arched into a frown.

“I’ve only just been given this body six days ago. This is all new to me.”

I ignored the sickening feeling in my stomach at the mention of the body, as though it were just some skin suit and not a human being who’d had their life stolen from them. I couldn’t save that person, but maybe I could save the rest of us. Maybe I could make it so that he hadn’t died in vain.

“So, I take that as a no.”

He didn’t deny or confirm it, but I knew the answer. He was brand new to our world and he wanted to live in it for a while. I needed to use that want against him.

“Whether you talk to us or not, you won’t ever be able to return to that house or you’re as good as dead. They’ll assume you talked simply because you’re still alive. You know that, right?”

“Ye-yes,”

he answered, looking exceedingly anxious by where this conversation was going.

“So, in essence, I don’t have to worry about you being a problem for me since you can’t go back there, and if you’re not a problem, then I don’t give a shit where you go as long as you keep your nose clean. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“You’re saying if I talk to you, you’ll let me go because the Legion wouldn’t take me back anyway.”

“I knew you were the smart one.”

I winked. “And of course, by letting you live, there may come a time when I need a favor from you. But I’m sure you’d be happy to help me out, right?”

He scrubbed his hand over his bald head as though trying to pry his next move from his noggin, and then finally nodded. I couldn’t say I was all that surprised since the alternative was certain death as he had just witnessed a couple of minutes ago.

“How many more are coming?”

asked Trace, stepping up beside me again.

“Hundreds, if not thousands.”

All moisture disappeared from my throat. “How soon?”

“I’m not sure. There’s new groups showing up every day from all over the place.”

“But they’re not all staying at the house, are they?”

Nikki’s family was rich, no doubt, but even their mansion couldn’t house thousands of demons at once.

“No, not all. Just some of the select few. The stronger, more powerful ones.”

Fuck. I didn’t like the sound of that at all. She was building an army around herself—one that would have no problem looking certain death in the eye to protect her and The Son of Perdition.

“When is she due to give birth?”

I asked. Somebody had to be monitoring her, tracking her pregnancy and the baby’s estimated arrival.

“They haven’t told me, but she’s close.”

His nostrils flared as he took in a deep breath. “I can feel it. We all can.”

They could feel it? What the hell did that even mean? Were the demons somehow connected to the baby? And if so, how? And why? To protect it? To worship it? The whole thing gave me the creeps.

“Why are all these demons coming here? What are they planning to do?”

I asked, figuring they had to be up to something. Why else would they all be showing up in Hollow Hills at the same time?

“They’ve come to witness the birth of The Dark One,”

he said simply, his eyes glimmering in reverie. “You must understand. My kind has been waiting millennia for his arrival.”

His words sent another bone-chilling shiver down my back. I couldn’t even begin to fathom all the implications of that. The only silver lining was that, according to him, the demons were only here to witness the child’s birth. Not to start a war with us. Then again, this was coming from a demon. For all I knew, he was giving me just enough information to escape with his life and not a word more. I had to take it with a grain of salt.

“What did she want with Trace?”

I asked, nodding over to the stunning Reaper beside me.

“I don’t know that either. I was only sent to assist Mehlee in retrieving him.”

“Mehlee?”

He gestured to his dead demon friend on the wet pavement.

“Right. Good to know.”

Coming up empty of what else to ask, I looked over at Trace to see if he had any questions of his own. He shook his head, his arms still folded rigidly across his chest. “M-kay. Well, I guess that’s it then,” I said as my gaze returned to Tall Guy.

He scratched the back of his neck as he waited nervously to see what my next move would be. By the look on his face, he didn’t believe I was really going to let him go.

“Well? Go on then. Get out of here,”

I said, ticking my chin in the direction of the outer parking lot.

That was all he needed to hear before whipping around on his heel and marching off as quickly as his feet could take him without actually running away from us. Because that would be lame as fuck.

“What are you doing?”

hissed Trace, his eyes wild with shock. “You’re not actually letting him go, are you?”

“Wait a minute,”

I called, and Tall Guy froze mid-step.

His head rolled back as though he were scolding himself for believing something that was obviously too good to be true.

“What’s your name?”

I asked, realizing he hadn’t properly introduced himself.

He turned around and stared at me for a beat, confusion wrinkling his forehead. “My name?”

“Yeah, your name. Like, what do I call you?”

“Oh. You may call me Turon,”

he said with a nod.

“Turon it is.”

“Is…is that it?”

he asked wearily, still not believing that I was going to let him go scot-free.

“Yup. That’s it.”

He was about to turn around and then paused, as though something had just occurred to him. “She’s going to send more demons for the Reaper when we don’t return with him. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Are you threatening us?”

snapped Trace, taking an aggressive step forward. Clearly, he was really itching for that fight.

“On the contrary,”

answered Turon. “I plan on leaving town the first chance I get, but I thought you should both know. They will send others just like me and Mehlee. Stronger and more determined. What Mistress wants, the Legion provides, and Mistress wants the Reaper.”

My stomach sank and then twisted itself into a knot as I swallowed back the taste of rising bile. Was there no end to the lengths that psychotic bitch would go to get Trace back? And if that wasn’t disturbing enough on its own, she now had the entire demon population working for her. Uggh! Welcome to my fresh new Hell.

“We can handle whatever she sends,”

answered Trace, not a hint of doubt in his tone.

Turon tipped his head in another nod.

“Thank you for the heads-up,”

I said and then watched as he turned away and left us, disappearing into the shadows of the night until only a memory of his existence remained.

“Well, that was…fucking weird,”

said Trace, mostly to himself.

That was one way to describe it.

“Do you always let demons walk away with their lives?”

he asked, his gaze falling heavy on me.

I crossed my arms and met his eyes. “Only if I think they might be useful later on.”

“And what makes you think he’s going to be useful?”

“For one, he’s a talker,”

I said simply as I kicked the dead demon with my foot to make sure he was still all-the-way dead. “He’s not loyal to the cause, which means he’ll do just about anything to save his own skin. Guys like that are good to keep around.”

Trace reflected on that for a moment and then mused, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do that before.”

“What? Use their head instead of their weapon?”

“Yeah.”

He laughed, the sound of it deep and rumbly. “Then again, the Council doesn’t exactly teach us anything beyond vanquishing.”

“You don’t say.”

He chuckled again, his eyes lighting up as they took me in. “Seriously. I’m impressed,”

he said and then leaned down to pick up Mehlee’s arms.

“Yeah, well, the killing-everything-that-goes-bump-in-the-night gets old after a while. Sometimes, you need to change things up a little. Plus, having an ally with their ear to the underground never hurts either,”

I added absently as I watched him drag the dead body over to his Mustang at the back corner of the parking lot.

“Is that how things started with Dominic?”

he asked as he let go of Mehlee’s arms, dropping him to the ground like a sack of cement and then fishing out his car keys from his pocket.

“Sort of,”

I answered distractedly and then frowned as he unlocked his car doors. “Um, what exactly are you doing?” I asked, super confused and also really worried that he was about to put the dead demon body in his trunk. Because gross.

“I’m just getting the body out of the way in case someone comes outside.”

I wrinkled my nose at me. “Are you going to put him inside your car?”

“Fuck no,”

he said, looking equally disgusted by the question. “I have some Cinderdust in my glove compartment.”

“Ohh.”

Thank god, I thought to myself as he leaned across the driver’s seat and then immerged from the car with a satchel of what I presumed was the infamous Cinderdust.

“It’s better to bury the bodies, but Cinderdust works just as good in a jam,”

he explained as he sprinkled the magical powder over the body. The moment it made contact, beautiful colorful flames erupted all over it, devouring the body with its magic until nothing remained but the clothing Mehlee had been wearing.

Hmm. That was a strange. “Why didn’t the clothes go with him?”

Trace rested his hands on his hips and stared down at the perfectly laid out outfit. “No idea.”

I couldn’t remember whether the clothes had gone or stayed when I used Cinderdust in the past, though I was fairly certain I would’ve remembered a dead vamp’s outfit laying neatly in front of me. Not that it remotely mattered either way.

Trace grabbed the items of clothing and then tossed them into the dumpster a few feet away from us, and just like that, all evidence of what had transpired tonight was gone. The threat against Trace, however, was ever-present. Turon had made it clear that this wouldn’t be the last we’d hear or see of Nikki and her demon minions.

The thought sickened me to no end. How many demons would she send next? How long until she sent enough of them to overpower him?

“I think you should stay with me for a while,”

I suggested nervously as he walked back over to me from the dumpster, dusting off his hands and then his clothes.

“Like hang out with you tonight?”

He furrowed his brow.

“No. I mean, I think you should stay at my house. Like indefinitely,”

I said and then swallowed down the ball of nerves the back of my throat. “You heard what Turon said.”

His jaw muscle feathered. “I’m not worried.”

“Well, you should be,”

I snapped, irritated that he wasn’t taking Turon’s warning seriously. “Nikki’s not going to stop until she sends someone strong enough to overpower you. Are we supposed to just wait around until that happens?”

“It’s better than hiding at your house like a little bitch,”

he said gruffly, as though it were an attack on his manhood. “I don’t need you to protect me, Jemma. I can take care of myself.”

For fuck’s sake. Why was that every man’s go-to answer? “I know you can, Trace, but we have strength in numbers. And it’s not just me there. Tessa, Gabriel, and my mother are all staying at the house.”

“Wait. Your mother?”

he asked, hearing this recent development for the first time.

Poor guy didn’t even know the half of it.

“I’ll explain later,”

I said, waving it off as I really wasn’t ready to open up that can of hell-born worms. “So? Will you come?” He started to shake his head again, but I quickly interjected before he could deny me. “Consider it a favor to me. For my peace of mind. Besides, what if she sends the next batch of demons to my house. Do you really want to risk leaving me all alone and unprotected?” I asked, batting my eyelashes at him as I tried to keep my smile buried.

He narrowed his eyes at me and shook his head, like he knew exactly what I was doing: Playing dirty as Hell.

And yet, it still worked like a fucking charm.