Page 27 of The Demon’s Due (Bedeviled #5)

“Some shedim started a breeding program so they’d have controllable weapons. At first, they tried it with Trads, but those women didn’t survive, so the demons switched to using Eishei Kodesh. They called it Operation Inferno, a perverse callback to the magic derived from the Hanukkah flame.”

I pressed my hand against my breastbone, trying not to puke. Delacroix had sworn that there weren’t demon-breeding programs—hadn’t he? Had he evaded my assumption with a question that I’d taken as proof? I couldn’t remember anymore.

The only thing preventing my sanity from imploding was Mom’s insistence that she hadn’t been coerced the night I was conceived. She would never have lied to me about that. And to be fair, Delacroix sounded pissed that he hadn’t been able to raise and shape Maud and me.

I let out a breath. He wasn’t— we weren’t—a part of that.

Ezra met my eyes. “I don’t believe you were?—”

“Me neither. Some shedim-human relations were nothing more than a fun time. But for some half shedim?” I pulled on my trousers. “Demonic lab rat. The least romantic origin story since radioactive spiders.”

I threw my hair in a ponytail and tossed on some makeup, waiting for my boyfriend to continue. “There’s more or you wouldn’t be this upset. Was Burning Eddie one of those shedim?”

“No. He opposed it. Vehemently so, hunting down any demon involved. The program was eventually shut down.”

“By Eddie?”

“By the Maccabees, many years later. Though he probably helped.”

I motioned for him to follow me out of the bedroom. “Like your dad and Pederson?”

“I’d like to believe that’s why their names were included, but Eddie didn’t give an explanation in the notebook.” Ezra put his phone away. “I have to get to the bottom of their connection once and for all.”

“If it isn’t because they stopped the breeding program, what do you think it was?”

He shrugged tightly. “The only reason I was accepted into the Maccabees was because I thwarted Natán’s attempted hit on the secretary. I’m going to Caracas to confront my father.”

I poured my coffee into a large travel mug and snagged a bagel from the fridge. “After that press conference the Authority gave? Natán must be livid. You won’t be safe.”

“He won’t do anything to me. I’m his prized possession.”

“You were, but…” I motioned at myself. “You’re in too deep with the enemy. The fiction of you working for him doesn’t help him anymore, not if healthy vamp mafioso are joining his cause like the Gryphon Gang from Vancouver. And it’s futile to press Natán directly for his agenda.”

Ezra made a frustrated sound. “Point taken. I’ll visit Secretary Pederson in Copenhagen right after we undo the thrall and get answers from her about their connection.”

“That’s a better plan.”

I’d scarfed down most of the bagel before we reached my car. The coffee lasted for half of the drive to HQ. I used the jittery rush for a wave of positive thinking.

Yesterday’s research session had been an exercise in frustration. I scratched absently at those damn scales on my neck. It would have been nice if my connection to Delacroix’s magic had inspired a grand epiphany, but my father never made it easy to get answers. Why start now?

I still wanted to punch the smug bastard for calling me the spark that made his dreams a blazing reality.

I merged into the left lane with a sharp inhale.

Ezra turned his head to look at me. “What?”

“The Luce is blazing its way across the globe, leaving a trail of devastation,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m thinking this through out loud so bear with me. Had the foundational strain in our Maccabee rings not been corrupted, then the combination of all the flame types working in tandem would have killed shedim. Could the same idea apply to the Luce?”

Ezra narrowed his eyes. “How so?”

“Eishei Kodesh are the Holy Fire People, so is there anything to the saying ‘Fight fire with fire’? All the flame types against the Luce. Is that too crazy?”

Ezra scratched his jaw. “It might just be crazy enough. This has legs, Avi.”

“It’s uncharted territory, because if something like this was ever tried before, we’d have learned about it. There won’t be records or a blueprint we can follow, but operatives are experts in all kinds of areas. We need a think tank.”

My phone rang.

“Jared Casey has scheduled his own press conference in two hours.” Darsh’s voice was strained over distant shouts. “The last thing I need is him taking that Trad’s murder as permission to incite vigilantism against all vampires.”

“What do you need from me?” I said.

“Can you go see Roger Henderson and get me dirt on Casey? Something to shut him up, for now if not for good?”

“Right after we see the healer,” Ezra said.

“You haven’t done that yet? Get on it. No. Fuck. Abort. Henderson first. There’s no time to waste,” Darsh said. He gave me Roger’s address and hung up.

“Zee…”

Ezra’s expression turned to granite. “We agreed on this, Aviva. This is important. Healer first! I have to go to Copenhagen, and I can’t do that when you’ll end up in cardiac arrest.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

He snorted in derision.

I didn’t have the heart to admonish Ezra for wearing holes into the seat belt with his fingers on the drive to Roger Henderson’s place. He’d spent his life searching for the truth about his mother’s death and the news he’d gotten about the breeding program was heartbreaking.

Unfortunately, the visit to Roger was a bust.

He’d been officially briefed that his ex, Rukhsana, had been a demon and was now dead. To say he was still shaken up was an understatement. He slumped on his sofa with dark circles under his haunted eyes, his hands trembling as he mechanically squeezed a stress ball.

Bringing up Jared only made things worse. Roger was terrified of where his former boss’s power trip would lead. He mumbled it was too much, and to leave him alone.

It’s not like this visit was some bucket list item for me either.

Time was running out to stop the Luce before it killed all vampires, and Ezra was about to go nuclear, but my gut insisted that Roger possessed dirt on Jared that could put the brakes on his momentum and stop the hate mongering the politician was sowing.

I brought up the Trad going after a vampire with a rifle. “That death was because of Jared. Be the moral arbiter you used to be,” I said. “The soldier who fought on the side of good.”

He refused to meet my eyes. “I’m not that man anymore.”

“You are.” There was no point traumatizing him further, so I stood up, and placed my hand on his shoulder. “When you believe it again, call me.”

With that, I went to break a thrall—and save my relationship.

A highly frazzled Louis found us within seconds of our arrival at HQ, demanding that I go see the director immediately.

Barely anyone was around, most of the operatives already deployed around town in anticipation of Casey’s press conference.

I informed Louis I’d see Michael after a quick stop to the healers.

I’d like to think it was my firm tone, or the memory of Cherry Bomb, that made my mother’s assistant bob his head nervously, but it was likely Ezra’s fangs flashing on a snarl, his now-red eyes narrowed to slits, and his fingers curled into claws.

“After we see Chaim,” I promised Louis and beelined for the healers’ corridor.

The bags under the healer’s eyes had smaller carry-on bags, his handlebar mustache was unkempt, and he crammed a protein bar into his mouth with jittery movements. He was reluctant to spare us the time for this non-life-threatening session.

Ezra physically blocked Chaim, but he kept his body language relaxed and his tone gentle while he convinced the other man that we were here about a simple matter that would take only a few minutes.

I added assurances of immunity from either the Maccabees or the two of us should anything go wrong.

When all that still failed to get Chaim on board, I stooped to guilt and mild blackmail, reminding him of the time I found him moonlighting at a health center.

Sure, he was donating his services after a fire had ravaged a low-income neighborhood, but Maccabee contracts strictly forbade outside work.

The organization regularly engaged in community outreach and put healers in place a day later to help victims of that tragedy, but paperwork and proper channels had to be followed, and Chaim hadn’t.

I’d kept silent about his presence.

“We’re even after this?” Chaim asked.

I nodded. “What kind of recovery time am I looking at?”

Chaim asked us for permission to place his hands on our chests to see how complicated a treatment it would be.

I held myself still while he probed us. There was no other way to describe it.

“Okay. It’s a simple dissolution that I’ll only have to perform on Cardoso,” Chaim said. “Aviva, you’ll feel flushed, but it won’t hurt.” He swiped the mag stripe with the card attached to a chain on his waist and opened the treatment door.

Ezra caught my arm before I entered the treatment room. “Thank you,” he said sincerely.

I caressed his cheek. “Thrall or not, we’re in this together.”

“I know, and that means everything to me.”

His words wrapped around me like a soft blanket in the gentle silence.

Until the sirens shattered everything.