Blood and Sin (The Infernari Book 1) (12 page)

This deep within myself, nothing terrible could touch me.

I spent a moment immersing myself in the cyclone of this Infernarus’s essence. Beneath his stormy exterior, Clades’ spirit was warm sand and flapping hides and snapping hearth fire. Comforting. Familiar.

Clades
, I spoke to his spirit,
brother, stop this
.

This was no direct connection, and I was no mind whisperer. I couldn’t be sure he had heard, as my words would resonate within the deepest, most unconscious part of him. But we Infernari were intuitive creatures. I could only hope.

I spent a moment longer with that essence of his, and then I withdrew, moving back up the connection. Up and outwards until I released the world inside myself.

I inhaled and exhaled, then opened my eyes.

The swarm still surrounded me completely, but now they parted like a stream around my body.

As I watched, the air cleared.

From it, Clades stepped forward.

Not all Infernari
appeared like humans did. Clades was one such example.

When he stepped into the clearing, I saw his hooves first. Coarse fur covered his calves. His legs tapered from animal to man above the knee, though the tan skin of his thighs were mostly covered by the loincloth he wore. He’d come from the tribes of the far south and kept the customs of his lost people.

His chest and arms were all human, but his blood-red eyes had horizontal pupils, and his nose was more stag than man—and the bull’s horns that spread out from his head . . . well, those were all beast.

Necklaces of bones jangled against his chest as he stepped forward. More bones decorated his wrists and ankles, as well as the leather throng that tied his loincloth around his waist. Strapped around his body were two holstered sabers. I’d seen firsthand just how quickly he could draw those two blades. How ruthless he was to his enemies, how loyal he was to his comrades.

You see, Clades and I were friends.

“Lana Malesuis,” he said, his voice pitched deeper than most Infernari, “you dishonor me with your plea, you who have been marked for death.”

I swallowed delicately. Deathmarked.

I stared up at him from where I knelt.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Please, as my friend, tell me why the primus has ordered me to die.”

Clades came closer. Around us, the swarm still buzzed, enclosing us in our own room of sorts. “You’ve failed to kill Jame Asher, the one who seeks to destroy our kind, and now you
help
him?”

I felt my nostrils flare. “I was his
prisoner
. And I—I tried to kill him, but . . .” I swallowed. “I couldn’t do it.” I looked up at Clades, letting him see my shame. “I’ve never been able to,” I whispered.

Clades knew this, that being a healer made killing nearly impossible for me.

The Infernarus stared back at me unflinchingly, and I couldn’t read his expression.

“When Azazel came for Asher,” I continued, “I got caught in the crossfire. He saved my life. Now I’m oathbound to protect him.”

Clades came forward, kneeling before me. He placed a warm palm on the side of my face. “He cannot live, Lana. So long as he does, and so long as you protect him, you both will be deathmarked.” His gaze was sad. Because he knew the lengths I would go to—the lengths I must go to—to save Asher’s life.

I felt my eyes well. “I know,” I whispered.

I couldn’t kill Clades to defend Asher either. I had already sworn an oath to protect my race. I now found myself in the same situation countless other Infernari had found themselves in. Bound by contradicting oaths. Forced to die with honor. I thought I had avoided this fate entirely by healing rather than fighting.

“What must I do, brother?” I asked.

“You must surrender and step aside. Return to Abyssos on your own. We will spare you then.”

“I
can’t
,” I pleaded. “If I step aside, you’ll kill him, Azazel will kill him . . . I’m supposed to protect him.”

“Then
he
must surrender,” Clades said. “He must kneel before us and pledge his loyalty to our kind. That’s the only way he lives. He’s a predator. One way or another, he has to be defanged.”

I nodded, my throat dry. I had pieced together as much myself. “I’ll get him to surrender,” I said firmly, my voice much surer than I felt. “Just give me some time . . . time to convince him.”

Clades studied me, his eyes grieving like he had already lost me. “He cannot be changed, Lana. If we give him time, he will only kill more Infernari, he will destroy more portals, he will destroy
you
.” Hand still resting on my cheek, the bringer of blight lowered his voice. “But you are dear to me. I won’t let this hunter be the death of you. There
are
ways.”

The back of my neck prickled. Ways that involved sidestepping oaths and a formal plea for mercy.

What he was proposing, if I understood him correctly, was dishonorable. It was so very
human
.

I eyed him suspiciously. “Clades . . .”

The Infernarus dropped his palm and stood. He grabbed the hilts of his two sabers and unsheathed them, his expression grim. “I will make this as painless as possible. When you wake, we will be back.”

I
had
understood him correctly. He was going to incapacitate me. And while I was unconscious, he would execute Asher.

I rose to my feet, my hair beginning to snap around me. “Brother,
no
.”

“The primus dominus will spare you when he hears your story.” Clades began stalking toward me then.

“Don’t make me fight you,” I said softly. “I won’t let you kill him.”

Clades raised his sabers.

The gun blast took me by surprise.

The sound shattered the silence, and I screamed as the tan skin of Clades’ torso exploded open like overripe fruit.

Asher stepped through the rapidly thinning swarm of bugs, his gun smoking. “Like I said before, demons are going to keep dying unless they learn.”

I could only spare a moment to stare at Asher in horror before I lunged for my friend, falling to my knees. I pulled his upper body onto me and cradled his head in my arms.

I could hear his wheezy breaths.

“Take the blood, Lana,” Clades breathed, his body twitching in pain.

Blood for magic.

I needed it. Desperately so. I could use it to heal him.

“It’ll curse you,” I argued weakly.

“Take it,” he repeated.

I could sense Asher approaching, gun still raised, the end of it trained on Clades. I ignored him long enough to move my hand over the Infernarus’s stomach. He winced as his blood began to sizzle on his skin, going up into luminous flames that flickered in every shade of the spectrum. My veins filled with the magic. I sighed as I felt it collect within me.

And then, pressing my hand to Clades’ stomach and murmuring in the old tongue, I began to heal him.

Asher stepped up to us.

“Move aside, Lana,” he commanded.

My spine stiffened. I shook my head, continuing to chant.

“Last time, Lana—move.”

I heard a click, the sound of metal rubbing against metal.

“No.” I spread my body over Clades. I couldn’t let Asher die, but I couldn’t let my people die either. “If you’re going to kill him,” I said, “you’ll have to kill us both.”

Asher grabbed my upper arm and yanked me up enough to aim. I made a desperate attempt to dive back down, but the hunter had been prepared for that. The second deafening shot hit Clades in the heart.

And now I fought like a mad woman.

Squaring his jaw, Asher began to drag me back to the car, even as I scratched up his arms and kicked at his ankles, feral in my attempt to get back to Clades.

He tossed me into the driver’s seat, then followed me in, trapping my body beneath his.

He cranked the engine on.

Mother above, we were
leaving
.

I made a pained attempt to squeeze my body out from under his.

He laid on the gas and the tires squealed as the car shot forward.

I let out a cry, bucking beneath him. I managed to get part of my leg out.

“Goddamnit, Lana, stop fighting me!”

“I need to save him!”

“He’s just going to kill you!” Asher yelled at me.

“He’s my friend!” I shouted back at him. I could feel the hot burn of tears in my eyes. I fought the urge to hiss at him.

With a cry, I managed to finally extricate my body from under his.

I crawled over to the front passenger seat, pressing my face to the window. I couldn’t see Clades.

Damn these metal machines!

A whine moved up and out of my throat, and the hand of mine that was plastered against the glass now curled into a fist. I fell back into my seat, closing my eyes. I would just have to heal him at a distance.

“If you heal him, he’ll only try to kill us again,” Asher’s annoying voice filtered in.

I was breathing heavy. “I cannot
not
heal him,” I snapped.

“Try.”

I opened my eyes. “You want me to go against everything that I am. Jame Asher, you are
mad
.”

“Listen to me, Lana,” he said slowly, carefully. “I know you can heal from a distance. I am asking you to give us long enough to get away before you do that.”

“You’re not
asking
me anything, Asher. That is a plea, and pleas are for the weak.”

“It’s not a fucking plea,” he said. “I’m giving you a choice. You can either wait to use your magic, or I can knock you out and we wait for as long as I deem appropriate.”

“You savage,” I spat.

He had the nerve to smile for a split-second before it evaporated back into the scowl he usually wore. “I don’t want to knock you out, Lana.”

I glared at him.

“Will you wait?” he asked.

“It depends on how long you want me to wait.”

“Three hours.”

An eternity.

Asher

It bothered me.

Lana had warned me of that cicada swarm . . .
why?

She was my hostage. It would have been her perfect chance to escape.

No, she had given her word she wouldn’t try to escape.

Again, why? Why would she make a deal like that?

Here I was, threatening to end her kind, and still she
helped
me.

Plus I could have sworn that demon back there had drawn his sabers like he’d been about to execute her.

Something wasn’t adding up.

As I mulled it over, we drove west on Interstate 40 across Tennessee and into Alabama. My goal was to make it to Texas by tonight. We’d reach the Mexican border tomorrow.

I’d chosen the route that would take us via Interstate 10 right past New Orleans, another potential demon hotspot, in case we came up with any leads along the way. Since we’d gotten dick so far, I wasn’t hopeful. Damn me, I should have steered clear of that haunted city. I was probably driving right into an ambush.

We’d get there late this afternoon, and I was starting to get nervous.

Hemmed in by thick trees on either side, the uninterrupted highway stretched out under a blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. It had that eerie still feeling, like the calm before a storm. It had me on guard.

What wasn’t Lana telling me?

We drove in silence for a while before I finally brought it up.

“I think it’s time we talked about your . . .
status
among demons,” I said. “That’s the second time a demon’s attacked me without regard for your life . . . and the second time you’ve chosen to escape with me rather than be rescued. I’m noticing a pattern here.”

“First of all,” Lana said sullenly, “they didn’t come to rescue me—”

“Clearly.”

“—they came only to kill you. And I didn’t
choose
to escape with you the first time. I was unconscious, and you came back for me.”

I peered sideways at her, but she wasn’t meeting my gaze. “And?”

“So I didn’t have a choice. I’m your prisoner.”

“At the gas station yesterday, you chose to stay with me.”

“I need to get to the portal so I can go home, and you’re the only way I’m going to get there. We made a deal, remember?”

I studied her, a nervous tic in her cheek betraying that she was lying.

“Nuh-uh,” I said. “I don’t buy it. Smart thing to do would have been to let them kill me, then go back with them. Cut and run. You have no loyalty to me. But you
warned
me of that fucker’s attack—that bringer of blight or whatever.”

“Clades,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She peeled up one sleeve of her jumpsuit and scratched absently at the inside of her arm.

“If you hadn’t,” I continued, “I might be dead. Both of us, in fact. Sure looked like he was about to kill you, too.”

Her eyes were anguished. “He wouldn’t have killed me, but . . . in my world, warriors don’t have much regard for life,” she said softly. “It’s not their fault. And I’m . . . behaving badly as an Infernarus right now.”

She continued to scrape her fingernail back and forth along her arm, back and forth.

I raised an eyebrow. “I thought Dominus wanted you back?” I said.

“He does. He did. I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I mean, he does . . . but you’re even more important. Dead.”

“Maybe,” I mused, rubbing my jaw. My valuable prisoner was starting to seem not quite so valuable. “Or maybe, they never gave a shit about you in the first place.”

She stiffened at my words.

“Lana, what is this about?”

Her lower lip trembled, then all at once, her expression crumpled. She buried her face in her hands. “I betrayed them,” she moaned. “When I couldn’t kill you, I betrayed them. Now they see me as a betrayer.”

Ah.

“So make it right. Step aside so they can kill me.”

“I can’t,” she grumbled into her palms. “When you saved my life, you bound our fates . . . I’m now honor-bound to protect you.”

I frowned. “So whatever, just break it.”

“Break my
oath?
” She stared at me in disbelief. “I’m an Infernarus. I can’t.”