Page 16 of The Demon’s Due (Bedeviled #5)

References to the Luce were few and far between, hardly more than waxing rhapsodical about its great healing power. There was nothing about it infecting and harming newly turned vampires.

Having reverted back to human form, I stretched out the kinks in my neck and moved on to another book.

“Does this look familiar?” Ezra pushed a slim volume in front of me, tapping an illustration.

I managed a single brief glance at the rune before turning away and swallowing hard. “As much as my brain can process identifiable details, yes.”

Sach grimaced at it then quickly averted her gaze. “Anyone speak Latin?”

Even Ezra had to cover the rune with one hand while he translated the text under the illustration. “It’s an ancient shedim rune used to amplify magic.”

“Of course it is,” Sachie said with a huff. “More equals better. Typical dude thinking.”

“The amplification rune blew the Brink apart, letting the Luce flood out,” I said.

“Where it started affecting baby vamps,” Sach said gravely. “Babel might be okay, or it might take longer to affect it, like the Luce so far only hitting young or infirm vamps.”

“You said you didn’t have the bandwidth to worry about Babel.”

“I honestly thought it was impervious to harm, but an amplification rune changes everything. And if Babel is hit, then infected and freaked-out vampires will stampede to earth.” Sachie’s voice was tight.

“They can’t close themselves off because they’ll be unable to import synthetic or human blood, and its citizens will turn on each other for sustenance. ”

“There are humans living there,” Ezra said grimly.

“Which will be awful for them, but that’s a small and finite supply. At some point the vampires will come our way.”

“It’ll shift the balance of power in favor of vamps over humans.” I shut the book, sending up a cloud of dust that I choke-coughed on. “Even Maccabees don’t have the resources to prevent that.”

Ezra snapped a photo of the illustration of the rune.

He had a particular furrow between his eyebrows, the one that made him look like he was trying to solve differential equations in his head while simultaneously tasting something unpleasant.

“Alastair had half-shedim blood in addition to the power word, which were the only necessary components for the ritual.”

“As far as we knew,” Sachie said.

“Assume we were correct,” Ezra said. “Alastair never intended to share these new abilities with his followers, so why bring an amplification rune into it? Was he deluded enough to think he could truly become a Prime? Or was something else at play? Think about it. How did Alastair, a dhampir, find a shedim rune, and this one in particular, when neither Darsh, Silas, or I was familiar with it?”

“What are you proposing?” I said.

“If Babel’s vamps show up here in a panic, they’ll beeline to one place and one place only. Right into the open arms of my father’s Vampire Care Initiative.” Ezra threw his arms wide. “The great undead savior.”

“Natán gave Alastair the rune?” Sach said doubtfully. “Why? He put a bounty on the guy.”

“Publicly, sure,” Ezra said. “But privately? My father is a master manipulator. Sometimes he would orchestrate feuds with other Mafias in order to solidify his own power base. Both sides always benefitted, even if the Kosher Nostra was the one to come out on top. I don’t see why now would be any different. ”

“To what end?”

“Get all vampires under his thumb here on earth then cause a shift in power that neither Maccabees nor armies can prevent. He’d rule the world with the help of a Prime who actually did his bidding.”

Sach shot me a look at the bitterness in Ezra’s voice.

“Natán claims to want to work with the Maccabees,” I pointed out.

Ezra shook his head. “He doesn’t think they’ll call his bluff.”

Sach snapped her fingers. “The handcuffs. Those vampires weren’t in them, but Eddie wouldn’t have freed his prisoners.”

I frowned. “What does that have to do with the rune?”

“The cuffs were open. How?”

“If they weren’t opened with a key,” Ezra said, “then shedim magic secured them, and when Eddie died, his magic failed.”

“But any magic had to fail before Eddie was killed,” Sach insisted. “Otherwise, those vampires wouldn’t have been free to stage a surprise attack and murder him. Did Eddie’s magic fail on those cuffs because of the Luce?”

“Well,” Ezra said slowly, “if they opened because the Luce ate away the magic on them, same as it’s doing to vampires, that implies that vampire magic is shedim based. Or at least springs from a similar source.”

“Vampires don’t have shifting shadows like half shedim,” I said, “so they’re not demon children genetically.

” The prevalent rumor around vampire creation was that vampires were descended from the human workers who built the Tower of Babel and subsequently cursed by God.

“Vamps and shedim could have a similar original story, though that makes both susceptible to the Luce.”

I froze mid-gesture as the implications crystalized. Would Ezra and I be hit? What would happen to Maud? I started frantically combing through books for an answer.

I found one—potentially—not in a book, but in a small grimy painting depicting demons experimenting on creatures that weren’t exactly human but possessed vampire characteristics.

Sachie stepped closer to the wall, squinting at it. “Is this confirmation of vampires and shedim springing from the same magic source or does it refute that?”

Ezra snapped a photo of the painting. “I’ve had my fill of this place. I’ll send this to Silas and see what he can learn from it.”

We hiked up to the ground level.

Sachie headed for the stable to feed and water the horses, arguing on her phone as she left the farmhouse with someone at London HQ to get out here ASAP and rehome them.

Whoever she was talking to was going to lose that argument.

Sach had been on the Canadian Equestrian Team when she was eighteen; her love of horses ran deep.

I stepped onto the porch and took a deep breath of fresh air, though it would take another forty million or so to expel the fetidness in my lungs.

It was only late afternoon, but dusk was already falling. I watched the sun sink behind the buildings, leaving a rim of burnt orange on the horizon.

The answer we’d gotten here today—that the rune amplified the ritual and brought about the end of the Brink—was useful, but there were still so many questions.

Not all Nippers had been affected when the Luce flooded out into our world, so how did it choose its victims? How fast was it spreading?

And above all, how the fuck would we wipe it out?

I bowed my head. I’d kickstarted this by winning the power word. Would I have made different choices if I’d known Alastair had an amplification rune? I honestly couldn’t say. I’d lived to fight another day. That would have to be enough. Yeah, right.

Ezra eventually joined me, bracing his hands on the crude wooden railing and staring out over the field. “Silas unraveled the mystery of that painting.”

I shuffled closer to him. “He’s still all right? The Luce hasn’t expanded its repertoire to go after older vamps?”

“No,” Ezra said. “Darsh is healthy as well. No word from Nasir yet though.”

The good-natured vamp was an experienced operative who could take care of himself. We’d lost Cécile; we weren’t losing him.

“What’s the deal with the painting?” I said.

“Shedim experimented with their magic to create lesser beings they could control. They weren’t vampires. Those didn’t exist until one of these creatures bit a human, infecting them, but yeah, indirectly, modern vampires have shedim to thank for their existence.”

I sat on the railing, my back to a post. “The Luce perceives shedim magic as unnatural and needing to be healed.”

It was a solid answer, and I should have been relieved. It’s just that I’d made so many strides in terms of how people in my life viewed half shedim, and to have a primordial force brand it as a flaw really sucked. “We’re screwed.”

“I think you and I are safe.” Ezra perched on the rail next to me. “Our magic is inherent. We were born with it. Think about it, the Luce is targeting shedim magic that was infused into beings or physical items. Magic that invaded them.”

“Maybe that’s true of vampires or even Eddie’s handcuffs, but the Brink?”

Ezra shook his head. “When I’m in Babel, I feel the shedim magic like a foundational faint hum. But in the Brink, it was more of a breeze blowing through it. Not of it, just present.”

“That makes sense. It’s a transitional space, ever changing. It’s volatile. The amplification rune gave the Luce the force necessary to implode it.”

“This means my theory about Natán’s grand plan has traction,” Ezra said quietly.

I tried to read his expression but couldn’t. His feelings were likely extremely complicated, like everything regarding his father.

“Using vamps’ precarious situation to bring them under his rule for a power shift?

” I shrugged. “I guess it does. Depending on who’s left standing.

” I slumped against Ezra’s shoulder. My eyes were dry and gritty and any adrenaline from killing the vamps in Eddie’s dungeon was long gone. “I feel overwhelmed.”

His arm tightened around me, a silent promise of protection. It was a comfort against the crushing weight of everything I’d faced and everything still to come.

But no warmth from his body seeped into mine. Vampires’ skin got cold when they were hungry. Primes didn’t have to feed as often and Ezra wasn’t ice-cold, yet a coolness emanated from him.

“You need some blood, sweetheart.” I tugged his collar away from his throat to check his bruises, which were still sadly present. “Just feed longer off me this time. That will kill two birds with one stone: your hunger and getting rid of the rest of Rukhsana’s magic.”

He rubbed his eyes. “I’m tapped out, but so are you. Since we’ll have to fly home, I’ll make sure there’s blood on the plane. And plenty of food for you and Sachie. We’ll get a healthy nourishment baseline.”

I opened my mouth to protest.

He booped me on the nose. “Nothing will happen to me before then. I’m not being stubborn, just practical.”

I yawned, nodding. “The only thing that eases my mind in all this is that Maud is safe and so are Eishei Kodesh. Even if what the Luce deems unnatural extends beyond non-inherent shedim magic to all non-inherent magic, it won’t try and heal Eishei Kodesh.

Had all this been going down when humans first gained flame powers, they’d be in danger, but unlike vampires, it’s in our DNA now. ”

“There also would have already been reports of children or the elderly being hit since they’re weaker than new vamps.” Ezra squeezed my hands. “Humans are safe. Same with our friends, because they’re older and stronger and will survive.”

“I want to believe that, but we can’t predict if the Luce will gain strength and affect any vampire, no matter what their age.

” My shoulders sagged as I dwelled on that depressing thought—for all of three seconds when another, so much worse thought hit me so hard that I whimpered.

My hands pressed on the sides of my ribs like I’d never get air into them again.

“What’s wrong?” Ezra was immediately in front of me.

“If those handcuffs failed because the Luce healed the magic on them, i.e. dissolved it, and that happens to the love locks? All those furious, hungry, escaped shedim?”

“Fantastic,” Sachie said, stepping onto the porch. “Demon prison break wasn’t on my apocalyptic bingo card, but here we are.”