Page 22 of The Demon’s Due (Bedeviled #5)
Defeat crashed over me like a wave. My father had outmaneuvered me again. I had no way to find the locks and hadn’t gotten anything from him on how to stop the Luce.
Instead, we’d been cornered into taking a shedim’s word that he’d keep the supernatural chaos contained—keep humans safe—when trusting demons worked out about as well as using a toaster as a life raft in a tsunami.
Sure, you might float for a second, but then you’d just be waterlogged, clutching a minor kitchen appliance, and disappointed in your decision-making skills.
I wiped away brain dust along with any sense of failure.
“We’re going to report, regroup, and find a way to stop the Luce once and for all,” I said.
As it was after midnight in Vancouver, that put a crimp in heading to HQ immediately. Plus, jumping between time zones that were always night was messing with my circadian rhythm. Loath as I was to waste even a minute, I recognized the sense in getting a good night’s rest.
I recognized the sense in staying awake long enough to deliver Delacroix’s “back off” message to Michael even more.
That went down as well as expected.
“Look on the bright side.” I had the call on speakerphone while I towel dried my hair, already in my pj’s after my shower.
“The bright side of a shedim blackmailing us into trusting him?” Michael said, driving home for some much-needed sleep. “The same one who facilitated your abduction, set all this suffering in motion, and somehow stole back the locks that were buried in Paris?”
I almost dropped the towel. He what?
Ezra raised his eyebrows and whistled softly. He was in a pair of cashmere leisure pants, the suitcase he’d brought with him from the Hell already neatly unpacked.
There were two long loud honks from Michael’s side of the phone.
“Fucker,” she muttered.
Oh dear. My mother wasn’t an aggressive driver. I had room for only one person with that tendency in my life and the role was filled by my best friend.
I tossed the towel in the hamper and grabbed my face cream.
“Even if we had the location of every single lock cell, Eishei Kodesh operatives couldn’t fight those prisoners and there aren’t enough of our vampires to handle it, especially not when they’re dealing with the Luce-infected.
The Maccabees are stretched thin, and this takes one giant problem off our plate. ”
“Assuming he can be trusted,” Michael said. “Which he cannot.”
Another loud honk and the squeal of sliding tires made me flinch.
“ Goddamn this rain,” she snarled.
“Mom, pull over. Please.”
“Yes.” The hum of her motor shut off. “We can’t afford to wage a war on this front as well,” she said.
“I’m inclined to believe that Delacroix will keep the prisoners from doing harm,” Ezra said. “He wants those soldiers.”
“For a coup.” She laughed bitterly. “My baby daddy aspires to be king of the demons.”
I choke-holded the skin cream bottle and sprayed lotion all over my hands. Did my mother really say baby daddy?
Ezra muffled his laughter with a pillow.
“Technically,” I said, spreading the cream over my arms, “he aspires to regain his crown. I’m a princess,” I added helpfully, trying to add some levity.
“Mazel tov,” Michael said dryly. “Well, should my career go tits up, I can always pull the nepotism card.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said, trying to recover from hearing my mom say “tits” in any context whatsoever. “Maybe he’ll make you his royal advisor. Or spymaster? How fun would that be?”
Cherry affirmed that sounded pretty great, but Michael sighed.
“I’ll speak with the Authority,” she said. “In other news, Ha-joon Park, a Blue Flame in Seoul, cracked the pattern of how the Luce spreads.”
“That’s great news,” Ezra said.
“Is it wind belts and air circulation?” I guessed.
“No,” Michael said. “Humidity and air pressure. Places with a higher humidity and therefore a lower air pressure have been hit harder. Temperature doesn’t matter.”
“What does that mean for Vancouver?” I said. “We’re not as cold as other Canadian cities, but we have relatively high humidity because we’re a temperate rainforest.”
“With the past five days of torrential rainfall, the Luce is tearing faster and more powerfully through our city,” Michael said. “It’s expected that all high humidity locations will fully succumb?—”
“Define ‘succumb,’” Ezra said tightly.
“Globally, that’s a complicated determination to?—”
“ Michael ,” Ezra growled.
“Use your imagination,” she snapped. She took a deep breath.
“Sorry, Ezra. I can’t define it because we have no matrix for such a definition.
The Luce will be most potent in a week. Assume the worst and that all vampires in these areas will be affected along with any locks in the vicinity releasing their prisoners. ”
I pressed my lips together against the scream lodged in my throat. Seven days was a blip—the pause between the latest drops of a favorite television show.
How could that timeline apply to the Luce infecting all the vampires?
Or to the wards on the locks failing and those prisons opening like chrysalises of evil releasing the world’s most unfortunate butterfly collection?
Ezra went utterly still, the immortal predator in him surfacing as his face emptied of all expression. Only his haunted eyes betrayed him as he absorbed the death sentence for his entire kind, while knowing that he alone on earth would survive it.
“The Luce is targeting noninherent shedim magic and was unleashed on our vampires because of a shedim rune and you two have more experience with demons than any of us,” Michael said.
“Tomorrow, comb through all our resources. Spot relevant details and get us answers that others don’t have the expertise to see. The clock is ticking.”
I padded over to the phone. “Copy that.”
“There is no time to waste. None .”
“I understand how serious this is,” I said waspishly. I drew myself up straighter. “We’re on it. Unless there’s something else you need to fill me in on?”
Michael paused. “I’m just on edge and need to sleep. You get some rest too.”
I disconnected the call and crawled into bed. “Come here and hold me.”
“Demanding,” Ezra groused, but turned off the light and did as I asked.
We lay there in silence for a long time. The countdown had begun, and with each heartbeat, our borrowed time slipped away. Seven days until chaos reigned. Seven days to face a storm that would unmake us.