Page 10 of The Demon’s Due (Bedeviled #5)

I took a seat at the round table between Sachie and Darsh, with Michael and Silas completing the group.

Sach was drawing in a dog-eared notebook. She’d done this her entire life as a way of better absorbing information, but not in the past few months. She’d confessed she didn’t require it anymore.

How bad were things that she’d reverted back?

She mustered up a ghost of a smirk. “I’ve started a thrall playlist. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s version of ‘I Put a Spell on You.’”

“Technically incorrect.”

Sachie shrugged. “I’ve also got ‘Abracadabra’ by the Steve Miller Band, Lady Gaga’s ‘Teeth,’ and ‘Blood’ by My Chemical Romance.”

“Is this playlist about thralls or taxidermy?”

“Nice one.” She sketched the head of a shaggy monster. “Just know that should I have to add ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’ from Disney’s The Little Mermaid , there will be consequences.”

“Noted. Where’s—” I caught myself from asking where Cécile, the former leader of the squad, was. “Nasir?”

“He took some of his vacation time to visit family in Babel,” Michael said.

Darsh cleared his throat. “I’ve been given the rundown of events at the gallery up to the point of Rukhsana being killed and Jordy Green and the two love lock cells returned to our custody. What happened next?”

“Alastair showed up,” I said.

None of their faces registered surprise.

“How could—why did you leave Ez when he was wounded?” The words burst out of Silas like he’d been trying to suppress them all this time.

“Let her speak.” Darsh placed his hand over the other vamp’s clenched fist but didn’t let it linger there. It was as if they were playing boyfriends in a shitty community theater production and not getting the dynamics right.

It made me almost as angry as Silas’s question.

“You think I would have abandoned him if I had any other fucking option?” I wrestled my claws back to fingers and took a deep breath.

“That’s not true. I had a choice. Go with Alastair or he’d call his minion to kill Secretary Pederson then frame Michael for it.

He also planned to prove Michael orchestrated Roman Whittaker’s death to protect me.

Ezra was conveniently at London HQ at the time, remember? ”

My mother compressed her lips into a flat line.

“For his finale, Alastair would expose me as an infernal thanks to a damning photo.” I spread my hands wide. “The dominos would fall. Michael to Sector A, my friends under investigation or worse, and Ezra hunted down.”

“I see,” Michael said tightly. “I imagine that the threat to the secretary is gone?”

“Yes. Alastair called everything off before he died.”

“Why didn’t he kill Ezra at the gallery?” Sachie erased part of her drawing. “Natán was hunting Alastair. What a blow that would have been to take out his enemy’s son, the only Prime, and claim that title in his stead.” She blew eraser shavings off her paper.

“He couldn’t sense Ezra,” I said. “The one good thing Rukhsana’s magic did was mask his presence.”

“And you left before that changed,” Silas said slowly. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

Sach shot Silas an unreadable glance from under her lashes before adding fangs to her monster.

“No,” I said evenly to the vampire. “You shouldn’t have. But I don’t blame you.”

“Where did you go next?” Darsh said.

I gave them the whole sordid story. It was easier to recount this time around. Or easier to disassociate and tell it.

Silas whistled softly while Sachie drew dark thunderclouds.

“That’s our culprit,” Darsh said.

“Culprit for what?” I said, scratching my arms. My skin wasn’t itchy, but my bones felt like they were.

“All the cities where rifts are located suffered minor localized earthquakes at the same moment,” Darsh said. “Even in areas that normally aren’t prone to them.”

“So it was the Luce.” I slumped back against my chair.

Michael nodded. “It blew through the Brink and out the rifts like air vents.” She paused. “It’s gone.”

I frowned. “What is?”

“The Brink,” Sachie said.

“That’s impossible. The Brink is as old as time. It can’t just vanish.” I looked between their grim faces, searching for any sign they were mistaken.

“Avi.” My friend tapped my hand with her pencil. I was scratching my skin hard enough to draw blood.

I stopped immediately and threw Darsh and Silas a stricken look. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem.” Silas pulled a clean but crumpled red and white bandana from his pocket and tossed it to me.

I blotted the blood and wrapped the bandana around the gash, my heart banging against my ribs. “I’m going to be blamed.”

“For what?” Michael clicked a pen with titanium plating and a navy leather wrap on the grip. It was one of the most expensive writing implements she owned. “A psychopath kidnapped the operative tracking him, forcing her to watch a ritual involving the blood of victims he’d ordered murdered.”

“Then the ritual backfired and killed him,” Silas said. “No great loss.”

“Too bad the dhampir’s not around to face justice,” Darsh said with a tsk.

Sachie snorted. “Too bad we can’t kill him again.”

I gave them all a grateful smile, though I felt like my blood had been replaced with static electricity.

“Silas,” Michael said, “can you put it out on the dark web that the ritual killed Alastair? Meantime, I’ll speak with the other directors to round up his followers.”

“Will do,” Silas said.

“Have the rifts vanished as well?” Cold sweat beaded the back of my neck. When I wriggled my hand, I saw claws and fingers at the same time, along with an increasing pressure in my chest, as if invisible threads were being pulled taut.

Silas shook his head. “No, but they now lead directly to Babel instead of going through the Brink.”

Sharp needlelike pains darted through my body at random intervals. I hunched over, my hand on my belly.

“There was no way to anticipate these other effects of the ritual,” Silas said insistently. “You did what you thought was best for all of us.”

My gut churned, but his words jolted me into sitting up straight. “What other effects?”

“Ever since the rift disturbance, Nippers in those cities have gotten really thirsty,” Sachie said. The perspective from the canyon cliff she was drawing was realistic enough to induce vertigo. “Their hunger comes on suddenly,” she continued, “and they’re unable to control their feeds.”

“Is it all newbies or is this skewing to whether the vamp was a Trad in life or an Eishei Kodesh?” I said.

Former Trads slept through the day. Even one lick of sun on their skin fried them. Vamps who’d had flame magic had more ability to stay awake and endure the sun, based on age.

“It doesn’t seem to matter,” Silas said.

“Have there been human casualties?”

Sachie nodded. “Some.”

“The Luce is attempting to ‘heal’ all vampires.” I closed my eyes with a pained exhale.

Then immediately opened them as the door was torn off its hinges.

Ezra burst in, his fangs bared like daggers.

He looked wildly around with eyes that were solid pools of toxic green. Why the hell did he have my eyes?

And what was with his behavior? Had he lost his mind? I jumped to my feet, placing myself between my boyfriend and the others.

Silas shoved Michael—still in her chair—behind him.

Sach’s pencil was gone, replaced by a stake.

Darsh narrowed his eyes but didn’t move. Should he determine that Ezra was a threat, he’d move as quickly as the Prime could.

“Danger?” Ezra managed to grind out, his body a solid wall of tension.

“No, Zee. Calm down.”

Other operatives should have been gawking at us, gossip mode engaged, but the entire floor was deserted. I could almost see cartoon puffs of smoke still lingering in the air.

Ezra slowly closed his fist on a broken hinge, crushing it, then he wrestled his fangs away and dropped his shoulders down. “Houston,” he said, “we have a problem.”