Page 19 of The Demon’s Due (Bedeviled #5)

I was woken by a text from Orly, wanting insider intel on the vampires, and, most importantly, the chances of Ezra being affected. I assured her that as a Prime, he was immune, and that the Maccabees were working on the rest.

She hearted the message immediately, adding that once all this mayhem was over, she was throwing a huge party. My presence was not optional.

A future where finding something to wear was my biggest problem sounded heavenly. I promised I’d be there.

“Who’s that?” Ezra said from his club chair over the clack of knitting needles. A canvas bag holding yarn with pockets for needles of different sizes, scissors, and a bright green measuring tape sat at his feet.

I blinked dumbly, not at the two blankets piled on the arm that he’d created while I slept, but because he was knitting backward. “Orly. She’s throwing a party when we’re clear of all this mishegoss.”

He chuckled, unraveling more stitches onto his needles. “Her bashes are legendary.”

I retrieved the pillow that I’d knocked off the sofa while I slept. “Was that orange sweater convicted of crimes against eyeballs and must now be unraveled into oblivion?”

“I’m tinking.”

“You’re thinking of how to answer?”

“Tinking. Knitting backward in word and deed. I’m fixing my brioche.”

I squinted at him, my face screwed up. “I think I’m having a stroke.”

Ezra chuckled. “You’re good. It’s just knitting stuff.”

I leaned forward and poked the garment with a grimace. The synthetic fabric felt like a grocery bag having an identity crisis as a shirt. “You didn’t have any dental floss you could stress knit? At least it would have smelled like mint.”

“It’s for my pit boss. He lives for this weird 1970s-looking shit.” He pointed at a neatly folded bundle on the edge of the sofa. “Your clothes, milady.”

“It’s Princess Aviva, if you want to be technical about it.” The clothes were soft to the touch and smelled like a hot summer’s day. “The Copper Hell spares no expense on laundry.”

“They’re putting in the work where it matters,” Ezra said.

I pictured Li’l Hellions huffing fabric softener like guilty teenagers, bit back a laugh, and went into the bedroom to change. No point taunting my boyfriend by getting naked in front of him. Or getting annoyed because he wouldn’t act on it.

Not that between the thrall and having to face my father this was an appropriate time for sexy shenanigans, but was a quick boob grab or hot kiss too much to ask for? I slammed the door.

“Whoops! Sorry,” I called out.

Someone knocked while I was getting dressed. Ezra thanked them, then the door shut, and the enticing smell of fresh brewed coffee filled the air.

I bounded back into the living room, clapping my hands at the cart holding a white carafe, milk, sugar, and freshly baked cinnamon buns.

“My hero.” I poured coffee into the oversized mug.

“Fess up. What happened while I was asleep to make you grab yarn from the craft store’s ‘Abandon All Hope’ collection? ”

He snorted. “I found something at Burning Eddie’s.” He pulled a large freezer bag out of the canvas holdall. The partially completed sweater was placed inside the plastic with care unbefitting of such a monstrosity, then the bag was tucked inside the larger carrier.

I licked cream cheese frosting off my fingers.

Ezra disappeared into his bedroom and returned with a dog-eared pocket notebook.

I carried my food over to the sofa to sit next to him, almost causing an interspecies incident when I placed my mug on the coffee table without a coaster.

“We don’t want rings,” Ezra said unrepentantly.

I poked him. “Referring to oneself as ‘we’ is reserved for those of us with royal bloodlines.”

“I meant as in neither of us. Not on our tables in our living space.”

Our living space? Had he dreamed of a future where we lived together? A gooey warmth flowed through me. “Table tattoos have never been on my list of concerns but cute of you to assume that.”

“Just look at this,” he said wearily and handed me the small notebook.

The pages were filled with cramped writing. It was the English alphabet but most of it was in some kind of code or shorthand that I’d never seen before. There were a few recognizable items, including a well-known date.

“That’s when the first vampire went public in the 1960s,” I said. “Burning Eddie despised vamps. Is this a chronicle of all the ones who challenged him and lost? A book of torture techniques? That’s unsettling, but why would that stress you out?”

Ezra flipped to a page about halfway through the notebook. There were only two entries on it, both circled: Natán Cardoso and Birgitte Pederson. “Could my father have made an enemy of that shedim? Sure. But why is Secretary Pederson here?”

I checked the rest of the book in case there was some clue to explain their inclusion, but that was the last page with any writing. “Yeah, that needs to be figured out.”

“It’s not in any code I recognize. I got frustrated.” Ezra toed the canvas bag. “I also sent photos of the journal to Silas and asked him to write software to crack it.”

“Will that interfere with him keeping order and dealing with the Luce-infected vampires in Vancouver?” I ate some more of my cinnamon bun.

“No. The software is already done and humming along. I just hate waiting for the results.”

“Fair.” I brushed crumbs off my lap. “And on that note, where should we start looking for the brain?”

“I reviewed the blueprints of the yacht when I first partnered with Delacroix,” Ezra said. “There aren’t any secret passageways and I never found any hidey-holes.”

I tamped down my grin at how disappointed he appeared by that, imagining him sneaking around and trying to Scooby Doo search the Hell.

“The brain must be in Delacroix’s bubble area,” I said. “And if it’s not, then we should still rule out his home as the most likely location. Let’s rethrall first.”

Every fiber of my being ached with the desire to be me and Ezra, not a one-way magic connection, but I wasn’t going to let my personal wishes get in the way of what was best.

“Yeah. I should be in top form to face Delacroix.”

“That plus I’m not sure if I saw vamp injuries because I leveled up on my own or because I’m getting some benefit. Either way, if I sense actual demon parts now? Like the brain?” I shrugged. “It’s an advantage worth having.”

I handed him my wrist like I was offering a contract to be signed.

He took it with the same brisk professionalism.

I felt hollow—a vessel being emptied according to schedule. The distance between us in these moments made my chest ache far more than the physical exchange ever could.

Each successive re-up involved less blood, which was good, but felt ickier in how cold and businesslike it was.

However, upon inspection, Ezra’s bruises were finally gone. Rukhsana’s magic was irrevocably flushed out of his system.

“Do you still feel the thrall?” I asked.

Ezra nodded.

Well, at least he was healed and that was the last time. Five—six days tops until the thrall dissolved? I’d manage until then.

We traipsed up to Delacroix’s iridescent bubble home on the top deck. Moonlight glinted off whitecaps as icy wind whipped across the deck. I wrapped my arms around myself, ducking salt spray, the ocean vast and endless around our vessel.

Delacroix opened his door and blew a stream of cigarette smoke in my face. His salt-and-pepper hair was reasonably tame today, like he’d been caught in a breeze, not a hurricane.

“I don’t have some magic potion to save vampires,” he said, “so don’t waste your breath.

It’s bad enough they think this is a homeless shelter.

They’ve scared off my human customers.” He jabbed the hand holding the cigarette at Ezra, ash falling on the Prime’s Italian leather shoes.

“Those EK suckers go a long way to paying the bills, financially and power-wise. Get them back.” He closed the door.

I shoved my ankle boot in, wincing when he leaned his weight on the door. “Asshole. Quit it.” I stomped on his foot, grinding my heel down for good measure.

The demon stumbled back with a curse.

I stormed past him, Ezra right behind me.

“By all means,” Delacroix grumbled, slamming the door. “Make yourself at home.”

The cheery roaring fireplace cast dancing shadows across the room. Fire burning contentedly inside what was essentially a massive water droplet was a surreal touch.

Delacroix had granted me entrance—a clear sign he had an agenda—but even with Ezra being his business partner and necessary to keeping the shedim safe, this conversation would last only as long as my father allowed it.

I slid into my synesthete vision.

Delacroix didn’t emit any special shedim signature that I could track, but the room lit up like a constellation map.

Every object touched by shedim magic glowed in my awareness: a burst of blue spilled out from the cabinet, there was a ribbon along one of the stunning framed photos of underwater life adorning the walls, and, oddly, an umbrella stand was also affected.

Sadly, I couldn’t see or sense the brain. So much for the hope that I’d be capable of sussing it out directly.

Delacroix sat in the chair closest to the fire and rubbed his knee. “Spit it out already. My friends are waiting for me.”

I walked around his room in a game of hot hot cold, watching my father for any reaction that I was getting close to the brain. I couldn’t read him with my magic, more’s the pity, but I had plenty of experience to draw on.

“The Luce, the healing magic in the power word that Alastair Walker was after, is ‘healing’ vampires, since the shedim magic that makes them vamps isn’t inherent to them.” I trailed my fingers over the cabinet with the spill of blue light, silently letting Ezra know that we had to check inside.

Psychic conversations were the bomb.

“Eishei Kodesh are also exempt from the Luce,” I said. “Is all of that correct?”

“Look at the girl detective go.” Delacroix smirked. “Very good, Fleischer.”

His sarcasm didn’t make a dent in my relief that Maud, Ezra, and I wouldn’t be harmed, and neither would Sachie or my mom or any of my human colleagues. Too bad that relief was short-lived in the face of the catastrophic threat of the prisoners getting free.

I rejected any notion that my vampire friends would be hit.

I slowed down by the bench seat under the window, which pulsed blue, but Delacroix just grumbled at me to sit because I was giving him a crick in his neck. He didn’t restrain me when I ignored him, so I crossed that spot off as a possibility.

“Did you see Alastair abduct me from the art gallery?” I wouldn’t put it past Delacroix to have seen it go down but not bother to help me.

He laughed. “Is that where you’ve been?”

I clenched my fists. His habit of answering questions with questions was infuriating.

“I hope you killed him,” he said. “It’d make me look bad if you showed mercy.”

“Your concern for my well-being warms the cockles of my heart. The Luce killed the dhampir.”

Delacroix shrugged. “Should I care?”

“Depends.” Ezra showed my father the photo he’d taken of the rune in Burning Eddie’s book. “Ever seen this before?”

“You expect me to remember every rune I’ve ever come across?” Delacroix said.

I froze, his dismissive tone setting off warning bells in my gut. The shedim was in the information-gathering business. His first question should have been “What does it do?” or “Who gave this to you?” He never missed a chance to hoard knowledge, but he didn’t bite this time.

A chill shivered down my spine.

Alastair hadn’t simply stumbled across the amplification rune. It wasn’t scrawled in some text at his local library or hanging in a museum for all to see.

I flashed back to the steady, methodical way Alastair had carved the design into his flesh. He didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate. There was no way he’d memorized that intricate pattern on his own because like Ezra and me, he couldn’t have looked at it long enough to study it.

Yet the dhampir knew exactly where each stroke belonged.

Someone had guided his hand, walked him through every angle and line. It wasn’t merely handed over—it was taught. Ingrained. A lesson he couldn’t afford to forget.

Natán wasn’t the culprit. Sure, he was profiting off the affected vampires now, but he’d put out a reward for Alastair’s capture. His lieutenant’s treachery had cut deep.

A shedim had taught Alastair. But not the demon owners of the locks. They’d never risk losing their power source.

I flew at the only other player on this game board, my claws out. “You gave Alastair the amplification rune.”

Ezra grabbed me around the waist before I reached the demon. “Avi, calm down.” He spoke thickly around his fangs.

I stopped struggling in his hold and exhaled hard to center myself. “My vampire friends might die,” I said coldly to my father.

“It had to be done.”

What was his angle? Why harm vampires?

Forcing aside pleasant thoughts of dismembering him, I focused on finding the brain and getting information out of the demon.

I resumed pacing. “The magic on the lock cells is failing.”

“You don’t say.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not surprised. How did you know?”

“Don’t insult me.” He ground his cigarette out.

Obviously, he had someone reporting back, but why wasn’t he angry? He couldn’t juice up on that magic if there were no prisoners as fuel.

Was it because he’d had time to process the news? It had been a few days since the Luce stormed earth.

Or had he known longer than that? Cherry’s assertion made perfect—and horrible—sense.

“You didn’t just give Alastair the rune.” I took a step back, the revelation striking like a physical blow. “It didn’t register at the time because there was so much happening, but there were only a handful of people who knew I’d taken a test for the supplicant’s?—”

The words died in my throat as fury clawed its way up, burning everything in its path. My hands trembled with the effort not to lash out.

“You told Alastair where to find me at the gallery. Everything that happened, everything I went through, it was all because of you.”