Page 26 of The Demon’s Due (Bedeviled #5)

I shook my head. “Impossible.”

“Are you sure?” Ezra hauled himself into a chair. “Because one moment I was using my Prime healing, and the next, I was flooded with the security system’s magic.”

That feeling of being scraped with a blade, but in a soothing, almost familiar way. Cherry waking up and reaching for it…

“Oh fuck!” My hand flew to my mouth.

Olivier and Sach raced into the living room. “What happened?” she said.

Darsh stretched out his hands, eyeing them almost suspiciously. “Apparently, we’re not only healed, we’re also protected by the Hell’s security system.”

“Delacroix is going to lose his shit on you two,” Silas said.

My father was already furious about me using my own shedim abilities for the thrall and all my “do-gooder instincts”—this would send him freefalling in unbridled wrath.

“Remove it, Ezra,” Sachie said.

I looked anxiously at my boyfriend.

“I would if I could,” Ezra said. “Think about magic like strings on a guitar. The thrall, my Prime magic, the security system, all of them are separate. When I started healing you both, I was strumming the thrall and my Prime magic, but because of our connection, Avi joined in this song and added the third string. This chord is vibrating through me,” he said through gritted teeth, “and it’s not ideal. ”

Patches of my scales remained on my arms, around my ankles, and on my stomach. When I couldn’t will them away, I hurriedly touched my neck and face. There was a small strip on the side of my throat I could cover with a turtleneck but thankfully, none I could find above that.

“Why did I manage this now?” I said.

Ezra shrugged helplessly. “Prime magic mixed with us having rethralled enough times that it was possible?”

I rubbed my hand over the scales again and then dropped it in my lap. “We wait it out.”

“I’m not sure it will fade this time,” Ezra said. “Like I said, this chord is vibrating through me. As if it’s stuck.”

“Then cut one of the strings,” Olivier said.

“I can’t,” Ezra said. “Not from within it, but a healer should be able to dissolve the thrall relatively easily.” He looked at Darsh and Silas. “Once that happens, you two won’t benefit from the security system, but my Prime magic should remain in place.”

The “for now” hung in the air.

“I prefer it that way,” Darsh said. “The notion of being tethered to Delacroix’s magic makes my skin crawl.”

Silas nodded. “Same.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Your heart was in the right place,” Silas said.

I stood up. “We’re headed to the library at HQ, so we’ll stop by a healer first and get ’er done.”

We said our goodbyes. Darsh planned to assess where the vamp neighborhoods were at in person. They’d mapped our city out on a grid, and he, Silas, Sachie, and Olivier with his Trad squad were going to Sector 13.

“I can’t guarantee there won’t be side effects of undoing the thrall prematurely,” Ezra said on the drive. “There might be a recovery period. The healer can tell us for certain.”

I changed lanes to pull ahead of a slowpoke driver. Why couldn’t anything be simple? I didn’t have time to recover. We should have been researching any shedim angle to stop the Luce alrea?—

Ezra slammed his hands on the dashboard. “Aviva!”

I hit the brakes before we sailed through the hard red light. “Sorry. Distracted for a second.”

Ezra placed the back of his hand on my cheek. “Are you feeling okay?”

“It’s nothing like that.” I scratched at the patch of scales on my neck.

“It’s fair to assume that my inability to get rid of these things is tied to being plugged in to Delacroix’s demon magic.

Could it give me insights into what I find at the library that I would otherwise miss?

” The light turned green and I hit the gas pedal. “Library first, healer second.”

Ezra crossed his arms. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“It’s an idea born of desperation, but these are desperate times.

Six days, Ezra, until every vampire in Vancouver is hit with the Luce.

How many will even be left at that point?

Will your Prime magic still keep Darsh and Silas healthy?

And what if the Luce mutates? We haven’t even considered that possibility. ”

He held up his hands. “Okay. Library first but we’re still seeing the healer today.”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

After I parked, I took a second to arrange my hair and pop my collar like a preppy from the 1980s to hide the scales on my throat, then we raced inside.

The size of a small school cafeteria, our library contained a surprisingly diverse collection, though it wasn’t a showpiece like at some of the other chapters.

We ensconced ourselves at my favorite table by the window with the magnolia tree outside, poring through the stack of books we’d gathered for oblique references to shedim abilities, including anything on shedim creating vamp-like creatures.

Hours later, I closed another book, my eyes dry and gritty, my neck in knots, and pathetically few notes on my laptop. I readjusted my hair and collar because my patchy scales hadn’t faded back to skin yet.

The librarian snapped on a small TV set behind the checkout counter, and the handful of us in the room gathered around to watch the Authority’s press conference.

Dmitri Koslov was the main speaker, but all of them were there, standing by him in silent solidarity.

He spotlit the terrible, senseless death of the Trad man in Vancouver. Photos of the victim filled the screen, along with Dmitri’s grave voice at how the Luce-infected killer was allowed to roam the streets unchecked.

“Where was the Vampire Care Initiative offering him sanctuary and keeping humans safe?” Dmitri said.

With his furrowed brow and solicitous lean, he oozed such perfect concern that I almost missed the predatory satisfaction underneath.

“The Maccabees are doing everything in our power to find a cure against this magic virus, but sadly, we no longer trust that the vampire leaders have any true desire for a healthy resolution.”

Not once did he mention Natán Cardoso by name, but you’d have to be a fool not to get the connection.

I could have throttled Dmitri. Every word that came out of his mouth increased the level of hostility between humans and vampires, making tensions so much worse.

He should have agreed to partner up with Natán and then see what the vampire did next—like whether he reneged on that stated desire. Natán would have looked like the asshole and turned public opinion against him.

Instead, Dmitri’s actions almost guaranteed that we’d only learn what Natán’s true motives were when he struck back. Cardoso Sr. hadn’t experienced a meteoric rise in the Mafia world and kept an iron-clad hold on the Kosher Nostra because he was famed for his mercy.

The operatives in the library glanced nervously at Ezra.

His jaw tightened, muscles jumping beneath his skin as he twisted a heavy book into a mangled mess of paper and bindings. A flash of something murderous darkened his eyes .

Every instinct screamed that we were heading for disaster, and I braced myself for the moment when loyalty to the Maccabees and loyalty to him would tear me apart.

The Maccabees fanned out to give him space—all, that is, except the librarian, who gave him hell for destroying a book.

Ezra relaxed his grip on the tome, though tension still radiated from his rigid spine.

Having spun his narrative, Dmitri decreed that given all these concerns, Maccabees were imposing curfews in all major cities.

He ended with a promise made directly to the camera.

“Maccabees continue to be stewards of light in the fight against evil. We human soldiers are trained for this battle. Put your faith in us.” He shook his head sadly.

“Doing otherwise will only get you killed, and anyone who says differently isn’t putting your well-being first.”

Ezra walked out.

I followed him, not interested in hearing the rest—or hanging around with shocked operatives pointlessly picking over the conference and my boyfriend’s behavior.

Besides, it was late, and my stomach was rumbling. Time to remove the thrall, eat, crash, and get an early start tomorrow morning.

Chaim, our most senior healer, was on-site, but he was in a treatment session. The others had gone home for the day, and the operative in charge of scheduling wouldn’t call them back. More operatives were getting wounded as the vamp situation declined, and the healers required rest as well.

On top of that, they were trying to keep up with the demand for boosted blood packs. Knowing these operatives, that wouldn’t change even should the Authority decree otherwise. If any chapter was going to launch an insurrection, it would be Michael’s.

We were told to come back tomorrow.

Ezra looked like his head was going to explode. He was a stompy thundercloud back to my car.

We barely spoke on the drive home. His brusque “good night” was the extent of our quality time before falling asleep.

Sadly, Monday didn’t start off with a jaunty “new week, new opportunities” vibe.

Ezra was up, dressed, and sitting in the corner of my room scowling at his phone. “Silas emailed a summary of Burning Eddie’s decoded notebook.”

I headed for my closet, every steady footfall feeling like a plummet into the abyss. “And?”

“After shedim created those things that bit a human and gave us vampires as we know them, they left vamps to their own devices. Vampires hunted humans, spreading chaos and fear, which suited the demons.” He stared off with a small frown.

I wriggled out of my pj’s. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Demons didn’t expect vampires to evolve and eventually come out to humans in the 1960s in order to assimilate. Once that happened…” He blinked at the screen of his phone like the next part might have changed, then turned to me with a look of dismay.

I smoothed the turtleneck fabric down, a pit opening in my stomach. “Just tell me.”