Page 17 of The Demon’s Due (Bedeviled #5)

I snapped my fingers at Ezra, all fatigue gone. “Portal! Wherever you’ve seen those locks in person. Now!”

A lattice of shadowy light rippled into existence, its strands weaving and unweaving like a spiderweb caught in a breeze. The portal flickered, its mesh-like surface crackling with unstable energy before dissolving into wisps of smoke.

Ezra flexed his hands. “It’s not going to happen.”

I shoved my wrist at him. “Then thrall!”

He brushed it aside. “We’re near an airport. I don’t know what the love lock situation in London is, but Paris is famous for them. We can be there relatively quickly.”

“There’s no time.” I slapped my arm into his hand. “ Feed .”

“I’m not your dancing monkey,” he growled. “And you’re running on fumes. You want to be even more enthralled to me? Fuck , Aviva.” His eyes flashed toxic green.

“That’s enough,” Sach said firmly. She bravely—or stupidly—muscled between the two of us with outstretched arms. “What are you going to do if the magic on the locks is failing, Avi? We don’t know how to stop the Luce, and even though we can send shedim back into their cells with our rings, we only have four cocktail doses’ worth at the best of times. Mine isn’t full, is yours?”

“No,” I muttered.

“Then take a breath and think logically. Vampire operatives are already in place at all known lock locations. We’d be notified if something had already happened.”

Logic prevailed and the fight went out of me. “Sorry, Ezra. My outburst was wrong.”

He gave a tight nod and pulled out his phone. “I’ll make arrangements to get us to Charles de Gaulle airport.”

“I’ll stick around here to arrange for the horses to be cared for and the place secured,” Sachie said. “Book me a flight out of London for home in a few hours.”

“Got it.” Ezra headed back into the farmhouse.

Sach leaned against a post. “Well, that was fun.”

I rubbed my forehead. “My fear got the better of me.”

“Unlike the rest of us who couldn’t give a shit.”

“The rest of you didn’t release the Luce,” I said evenly.

Sach smacked me across the top of my head.

“I would have made the same play back at the fortress to nip this in the bud. Besides, releasing the Luce wasn’t the problem, it was the amplification rune, which you couldn’t have predicted.

Get that through your fat, stubborn head because we don’t have time for your guilt right now. ”

“Great pep talk.”

She grinned, showing both her dimples. “My motivational speaking skills are unparalleled. And since I’m multitalented, I’ll even throw in a brilliant piece of advice: let that stupid thrall die already.”

“That stupid thrall healed Ezra. Is healing him,” I amended.

Sachie pushed off the post. “Relationships can’t survive knowing each other’s true feelings at every moment. Or having heart attacks because you didn’t stick to each other’s sides.”

“It’s not a two-way street,” I said.

“Thanks for making my point,” she said and headed back to the stables.

All things considered, the journey from Eddie’s farm to the Paris airport was quite short. It only felt interminable because Ezra grunted a grand total of five words to me.

We both ate and then he grudgingly acknowledged that we should rethrall.

I despised every transactional second of it—the dispassionate press of his mouth, the clinical precision of his fangs lowered into my skin.

It appeared that every time Ezra drank from me to re-up, it would feel less and less pleasurable. The short-term nature of this bond had originally been a plus, but then again, I hadn’t envisioned having to juice him up multiple times.

I spent the rest of the flight over the Channel visualizing floating in the ocean and taking so many deep breaths that the passport control officer who’d come to us on board the private plane when we landed at Charles de Gaulle asked if I was having an asthma attack.

Ezra finally laughed.

We climbed into a Lincoln town car with tinted windows and began the drive into Paris.

Nondescript industrial warehouses and office parks eventually gave way to stark white residential towers.

We drove past cops and operatives in front of a large gated stone building, keeping small but vocal opposing camps from coming to blows.

I didn’t speak much French, but the gruesome illustrations on some signs made their respective positions clear: those who saw the Seaside facility as the way to keep all humans safe versus those who wanted vampires dusted.

Given Natán’s name on signs justifying both sides’ arguments, I raised the privacy glass in the limo and called Darsh to ask if Cardoso Sr.’s announcement had caused waves back home.

We had a Seaside of our own outside the city.

“Natán’s press conference agitated some people, but Casey’s response this morning didn’t help,” Darsh said.

“What did that asshat say now?”

The neighborhood transitioned to the classic French architecture with cream-colored stone buildings and wrought iron balconies. It was still evening, but the streets were depressingly empty. The few pedestrians hurried along the sidewalk past the occasional boarded-up storefront, their heads bent.

The pa-pom sound of wailing sirens was incessant.

“You have to hand it to Casey,” Darsh said blithely, “he can find an anti-magic angle in anything. He’s furious that the Maccabees, our so-called supernatural police force, is running around barely doing damage control instead of taking decisive action.

What’s worse is that it fucking feels that way too. ”

A loud crash from his side made me flinch.

“Darsh?” I said tentatively.

“He needs a moment for an attitude adjustment,” Silas said evenly into the phone. A car engine started up, followed by pop music switched off mid-song. “I’ve put you on speaker while I drive.”

“I’ll do the same with me and Ezra.” I hit a button. “What else did Casey say?”

“The politician is on a tear about having to put our faith in vampire Mafias to protect us,” Darsh said. “Sorry, those bloodsucking law-breaking bottom-feeders.”

“Quite the turn of phrase,” Silas said.

“To be fair,” Ezra said wryly, “those bloodsucking law-breaking bottom-feeders have way more money than the operating budget of any Maccabee chapter.”

Darsh laughed without an ounce of humor. “Speaking of flush with cash, you sent Sachie back on a private plane, Cardoso?”

Ezra propped a foot on the limo seat across from him. “It was the most expedient way to get her home.”

“I appreciate it.” There was a long pause. “She filled us in that only inherent magic is exempt from the Luce,” he said neutrally.

“Hell of a thing,” Silas added.

“Yeah,” I said sadly.

“We’re not throwing a pity party,” Darsh chided. “I’m infallible to an enviable degree, and Cowpoke is just stubborn.”

“Or the other way round,” Silas said.

“We’re heading into the tunnel.” Darsh spoke through a burst of static. “Be safe.”

“You guys as well.” Slumping back against the seat, I lowered the window to let in some cool night air.

The Seine slipped beneath stone bridges while church spires soared up to meet the bank of clouds pressing down on the city.

Maud messaged me to bitch about her security detail. They’d assigned her some uptight operative who wouldn’t let her out of his sight.

I fired back that that was the point and to play nice.

Shortly after, the limo pulled up to the curb.

“The Pont des Arts is a block away,” the limo driver said in French-accented English. “This is as close as I can get.”

We thanked him and hurried to the pedestrian bridge.

Down the Seine, the Eiffel Tower glittered with thousands of lights, eager tourists capturing photos of the scene.

Streetlights cast a glow over thousands of love locks—some gleaming new, others weathered and dull. If even a fraction of them contained demon prisoners?

“Breathe,” Ezra murmured.

I slid into my synesthete vision. Not every silver lock was a cell, but there were still hundreds of them on the railings, each one a harbinger of doom.

Some of the etched runes pulsed in regular strong waves, but on others the red and purple magic flickered like dying embers. Their glow had dulled to barely a twinkle, the protective sigils fading into the metal as if being slowly erased.

I clutched Ezra’s hand. “We need to get these locks out right away.”

But where would we take them?

I centered myself. The vampire operatives stationed at one end of the bridge could suggest somewhere.

I hurried over to the pair.

Likely level ones if they’d been given this assignment, they maintained perfect stillness. The woman had close-cropped silver hair and aristocratic features. Her brawny male partner gave us the barest glance before returning to scanning the bridge.

I identified myself, showing my Maccabee ring.

The woman gave Ezra a nod of recognition.

“The lock cells on this bridge must be removed at once,” I said. “The protective magic on some of them is failing, and they need to be contained.”

Kudos to the woman’s professionalism, she didn’t waste time reacting, already making a call. She spoke in rapid-fire French, her voice and cadence reminding me of Rukhsana.

I curled my fingers into my palms.

“A crew is coming,” she said. “We had a contingency plan for just such an occurrence.” She put her phone in a pocket.

“That explains the new wrinkle of skirmishes with suspected shedim in the past two days. We believe other demons have been lurking at the perimeters of our patrol zones. The lock owners are on standby to capture their escapees.”

“The past two days?” Ezra said. “You’re sure?”

“Positive,” the male vamp chimed in.

Maccabees know about the Luce because you told them about it . Ezra’s voice in my head was quiet but insistent. Even if shedim prison owners connected affected vampires to failing shedim magic, how did they do it the second the Luce hit to already have their demons in place?

I glanced at the tourists, some of whom might be glamoured shedim. It’s someone else’s play. Someone with prior knowledge.

Whoever gave Alastair that amplification rune , Ezra agreed. Told you .

Was Natán really behind it? Was he making deals with demons?

Had he made one with Delacroix? Wouldn’t that be rich, our two fathers in bed with each other?

Phrasing . Cherry grimaced.

“What’s the situation with the vampires right now?” I said.

The female vampire shrugged. “The Authority sent word about the Luce, but we don’t have a rift here in Paris. Few vampires have been affected.”

“That will change,” her partner said in disgust. “Meantime, the Authority sits with their thumbs up their asses instead of doing whatever it takes to keep their operatives safe.”

“They’re working on stopping the magical infection,” I said.

“How many will die, vampires or humans, while this research is happening?” He scoffed dismissively.

“It took them centuries to find the magic cocktail yet the promise that it killed shedim turned out to be a lie. How many more lies will we be fed? The Authority’s probably drafting execution orders for any vampire showing symptoms. When that happens… ” He let the threat hang in the air.

Demon prisoners, the Luce, human-on-human violence, and now mistrust from vampire operatives—which threat would tear my organization apart first?

The male operative barked something in French at a couple of tourists fiddling with some locks for their photo, and when they didn’t comply, he hurried over to them, sidestepping puddles. His steps hitched and jerked, like an old film strip stuttering.

Ezra , I said through our psychic phone line. Four o’clock . The operative .

Ezra flicked his gaze over, then back to the female vampire before she noticed and turned to see what he was looking at. Damn it .

“Aside from incidents of infection,” she said, “more vampires are coming to Paris from surrounding areas. Willing donors are getting less willing, and the vampires wish to be where the synthetic blood is.” She nodded at Ezra. “Good thing your father is on that.”

Ezra gave her a noncommittal smile.

The male vamp returned with careful, even steps, his cheeks flushed.

“We should be partnering with Mr. Cardoso. He has resources.” His voice cracked slightly, desperation bleeding through his carefully maintained composure.

“Neither of you understand what those of us turned against our will lost. The only thing we gained was immortality, and now we’re facing an eternal nightmare. ”

He slammed his fist into a lamppost, denting the metal. “Can’t you make that partnership happen? Before more of uh—them are lost to the Luce?”

My heart twisted at his stumbled change of pronoun.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Ezra said with a somber nod.

The Eishei Kodesh removal crew arrived, dressed as city workers. They cleared the bridge of tourists, claiming weight and structural issues, then started cutting off locks.

Ezra and I oversaw their work. Our new psychic connection was a godsend because I told him which runes were weakening and he passed it on to the operatives. No one questioned the Prime’s ability to sense that.

The thirty or so cells in most imminent danger of opening were placed in a locked box.

Since Ezra and I were accompanying a small squad to the secure site, the operatives staying behind opted to err on the side of caution and remove all silver locks on the bridge.

They’d follow us to the underground bunker in a wooded area outside the city.

When I stepped out of the van after the short ride, it was hard to believe Paris was nearby.

Bare branches creaked and swayed in the darkness and the wind whispered through the pine needles, carrying the sharp scent of winter-wet bark. Something small darted through the underbrush with a soft crunch.

One of the operatives unbolted blast doors, and we descended narrow metal staircases for ages then wound through passageways to a small room with thick concrete walls.

Mezuzahs were affixed to the doorframe of the space but facing in the opposite direction from usual. Rather than protecting this room against any demon getting in, they ensured that no shedim could bypass the mezuzahs to exit into the hall.

The locks were sunk into blocks of cement and buried in deep holes, which were also filled in.

I felt queasy at the thought of the cell doors opening, only for the shedim to find themselves trapped for eternity in concrete. It was a barbaric, if necessary, solution.

I only hoped it wasn’t a delusional one.