Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King (6 page)

“Where’s the fun in that?” Carson asked.

Vivian nodded agreement.

“Izumi’s fey,” I said.  “Do you want her dead?”

Vivian set down her cup of blood.  “No.  Izumi’s kinda cool, once you get past that over-possessive bitch façade, even if she takes up way too much of your time.”

I sighed.  “It’s terrible.  I know, so many women and have only one god-like cock to pass around.”

Carson growled.  “Hey, I’m eating here.”

Vivian’s eyes warmed at the mention of manhood.  She leaned forward, and stared meaningfully.  “Want me to show you around before you go?”

I didn’t think inspecting the house was what she really wanted.  I pushed the glorified bologna sandwich away and got up from the bench.  “Sure.”

She got to her feet and came around the table.  “This way.”  She headed through a space where double doors might once have been.  We passed a living room where the faded wallpaper was being removed, where ladders and buckets of paint waited.  There were sheets and tarps spread to protect the floor along the base of the walls.  A crystal chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling.  It had pointy lightbulbs mixed in.  The lights were on.

A hallway with bare wood flooring led us to a back room.  She waited at the door as I approached.  I looked past her, into at a master bedroom with an actual bed, queen-sized.  The drapes were closed and heavy so the space was stuffed with gloom.  She pushed me inside and followed, locking the door behind her. 

She stood there with fists on her hips, daring me to make a move, when I knew—on the inside—she was begging.  She said, “If I’m going to be missing out on a lot of your time during this coronation, don’t you think you should make it up to me now?” 

Being no fool, I quickly shed my clothes and bared a very hard erection.  My hungry eyes devouring her.  I went closer.  She held a hand up to stall me.  “Dhampyr are tough.  You don’t have to be gentle.  In fact, if you don’t tear off my clothes and ravish me in a lust-driven frenzy

I’ll be deeply disappointed.”

I grinned.  “Can’t have that, can we?”  I lunged and enveloped her, slamming her to the bed, ripping away her top, attacking the fastenings of her shorts.  The zipper tore out.  The material shredded away, bouncing her pelvis on the bed as she was bared for consumption.  She squealed, like this was her first rodeo.  I appreciated the encouragement, claiming her lips with bruising force.  My lips trailed to her neck.   

She gasped.  Her fangs playful sank deep into my shoulder.  As she drank my blood, I mauled her pretty flesh.  At one point, she whispered into my ear.  “You are my lord.  I pledge heart and fist, life’s blood and full strength to your service.”

I continued my ground-and-pound on her throbbing pussy.  Through the slap of flesh on flesh, I said, “Oath … accepted!”  The golden dragon—my other half—stirred, murmuring from a dream. 
Mine!

Yeah,
I thought
, now shut up, I’m busy.

SIX

“Yes, I’m a vain-glorious dick.  What’s your point?”

                                  —Caine Deathwalker

I reached the gate in front of the Victorian and stopped to watch a pack of mongrel kids in black denim jeans, Nike’s, and raider’s jackets swarm my Mustang.  With its deep blue paint job and the pale blue lightning bolts for contrast, the vehicle was a thing of beauty.  The boss, a kid with a shaved scalp and a backwards hat pressed his wide nose to the driver’s window, looking to see if there were valuables inside.  “Jackpot!  High tech stereo.”  He pulled a slim Jim out of his pants, bringing the flat metal strip up to the door window.  “I got this.  Someone get those designer hubs off.”

I smiled.
  Oh, this is going to be good.

There was a crackle of real electricity.  The nosy kid fell back on his butt, his face a bit on the smoky side.  The car’s anti-theft AI announced her presence with a sultry voice modeled after Gloria’s.  “Attention, scum, this vehicle is protected.  Any attempt to compromise its integrity will result in massive carnage and blood splatter.  You have been warned.”

Damn, I love that sexy voice.

I stepped out of the gate and summoned both Berettas Storms.  They popped into my hands, comforting weights.   “Hey, douchebags!”

I thought it funny that they all identified themselves by looking at me.  One of the punks was packing.  He demonstrated this by grabbing under his shirt at his waistband.  I placed a shot between his eyes, a neat little hole.  The exit wound at the back of his head was quite a bit larger.  Most of the others ran for it.  One big bruiser looked like he spent four hours a day lifting weights. 
Probably getting ready for a life behind bars.
  He lunged at me, grabbing for my hands. 

I let him get a good drip and held myself immobile.

Being
slightly
on the small side—except where it counts, in my pants—I sometimes gave a false impression of weakness.  Ridiculously big people thought I ought to be easy to shove around.  This guy thought so; he wrenched, and tugged, and grunted manfully, and accomplished nothing.  I don’t think he budged my hands more than a few millimeters.  Failing to understand the dragon-born strength in me, he glared, his brow furrowed in confusion as his nostrils flared.

I politely asked, “Are you done, ass-wipe?”

He let go of one wrist and hauled his free hand back, making a fist to bust me in the face.  His knees were bent.  His back hunched as he leaned into me, throwing the punch with only his shoulder muscles behind it.  With my freed gun in hand, I shot him in the shoulder.  He stood there, barely moved by the impact.  I hopped, using his left knee as a stepping stone to launch myself into the air so we could see eye to eye.  The punk’s dark face was strained with pain. 

I said, “Kiss the devil hello, he needs a new bitch,” and shot out his left eye while kicking him in the chest.  He fell back, dead before he slammed into the sidewalk.  My fun was over too fast.  Two dead, everyone else hauling ass. 
I blame X-Box.  Too many kids playing Grand Theft Auto instead of living it.  Makes you soft. 
I went around to my driver’s door.  The kid who’d been fried had been dragged off. 
And I’d wanted to kick him in the balls a few times. 

“It’s me,” I told the car.  “Shut down automatic defenses.”

“Automatic defenses disengaging, darling.”

“Don’t get fresh.  I don’t do tailpipes.”  I grabbed the handle and the door unlocked for me.  I slid in, shut the door, and buckled up.  A few moments later, I had my sunglasses on.  The car thundered down the road.  The rest of my business, I could handle from the San Clemente Island compound. 

I passed L.A., cruising twenty-something miles due south to the Shoreline Aquatic Park lay between the Long Beach Arena and the Downtown Shoreline Marina.  The park was a boot-shaped peninsula in the Pacific where the Los Angeles River emptied into the sea.  The golden sun hung high overhead.  The sea glittered with sunlight.  Sailboats caught the wind, slicing the waves.  I took my usual shortcut across the bike trail.  A couple of pudgy feminists in too-tight shorts and “Women Rock” tees pulled off the trail, screaming insults. 

I smiled in passing.  “Ah, sweet discord, it just makes me feel so alive.”

I saw well-maintained grass inland on my right.  On the left lay a line of small boulders edging the sea.  Less than a minute later, I reached a pier lying less than a hundred feet from the hill lighthouse.  The white brick structure was capped on top by glass and a red latticework.  I pulled onto the pier.  The tires made rhythmic
thunking
sounds. 

Approaching the end of the peer, the car entered an unseen summoning circle drawn in ultraviolet paint.  A blaze of magical blue light surrounded the Mustang.  The arcane energy vortexed and pressed in to get a taste.  I felt a lick on my skin as the magic searched for demon DNA.  I wasn’t demon-born like the rest of my clan, but the Old Man had keyed me into the circle long ago. 

Passing inspection caused the light play to die, and the water to froth at the end of the pier.  A polished, flat-topped coral ramp rose out of the ocean, stirring up silt.  The coral fitted itself against the pier, giving me way down to the surface of the water.  The rest of the sea road was barely submerged.  At night, it rose much higher.  By day, the magic kept a lower profile.

I fed raw magic into my
Demon Wings
tattoo, extending the spell with more power to cover the Mustang too.  This would keep anyone from seeing a car driving on the ocean.  There were human-built amphibious car/boats that could ride the sea without magic.  I cloaked myself anyway, preferring privacy to public gawkers—and maybe distant snipers. 

The thirty minute crossing passed without event, with the road behind me sinking to the ocean bed when no longer needed.  A crescent cove came into view, lined with residential boats, yachts, and powerboats.  Just beyond lay a little marina.  Beyond that, Avalon City, home to around 4,000 people. The place was a notorious tourist trap with shops, restaurants, and bungalow style hotels.  As designed, the magic road bypassed the Avalon Casino, swerving right to an area of empty beach.   A demon spell averted any watching eyes in the area as the road rose to lift and drop, depositing me well ashore on a dirt road.

The new road didn’t look like much.  That was the point.  When activated, it brought travelers to the Lauphram Clan House.  Those not of the clan would never find the way.   Sure, a nearby rock had a rune sign carved into it, but the symbol needed a keyed-in presence to activate it and the second demon road. 

As my Mustang neared the rock, aqua-tinted light spilled out, washing across my skin.  Though not demon-born, I was keyed into the system.  The light recognized me.   The dirt road changed, becoming paved.  Several illusionary trees actually pulled aside to no longer block the new direction of the road’s bend.  The trees moved behind me, back to their old places, as I headed inland, climbing sharply upward at times.

I shot past Wrigley Reservoir and nosed into a mysterious mist. The road became limestone.  Trees appeared left and right, a light woodland.   Soon, I wheeled up to a natural barrier woven from branches where two monster trees laced branches. As the Mustang approached, the branches pulled apart, revealing an open path.  The road became a circular drive ringing a four-tiered fountain.  A side road wound behind the clan house to where the massive garage that served the clan.
 

Being special, I got to park right in front of the main door.  I left the vehicle, pausing—as I usually do—to stare at the building.  Some of it needed final touch ups, but most of the damage from the Blue Star Priestess’ army had been repaired.  The Old Man’s opulent excess in taste had triumphed in the end.  You could tell he’d grown up in ancient Atlantis.  The central hall was a two-story, Greek Parthenon of snow-white marble, like something plucked off an island in the Aegean Sea. 

Bracketing the colossus were one-story wings stretching away.  Under crescent balconies, the main porch was lined with hand-carved columns resembling mythic heroes: Orion, Hercules, Achilles, and Jason.  After the destruction of last two figures, I’d suggested that my own likeness might replace one of the statues.  The Old Man had barked a laugh, gone somber with great speed, and told me “No, no, and Hades no!”  He’d replaced the statues with new copies of the old ones.

Unlike the original model, a dome-capped this particular pantheon.  The cap was a web of magic-reinforced steel.  The walls had been magically reinforced to take the weight.  Between the curved beams, the sea-green glass shone.  The Great Hall’s many five-tiered chandeliers beamed brightly at night, making a monstrous lighthouse out of the roof so a bottle-green haze hung above the structure like an aurora borealis.  Bathed in that haze, a gold spiral rose from the dome’s center-point.  Inside, a mermaid figurehead gazed at the heavens with dark eyes.  She was gold, her scaled tail folded up at the knees, the fluke fanned against her lower back.  She was a little pudgy, with D-cup breasts. 

Splendidly tacky, the nipples were twin rubies, shining like welcoming stars.  Strangely, I found I could taste them from where I stood; it was a dragon thing.  My sleepy inner dragon stirred a little, one eye opening in the back of my mind to take notice.  I felt the flame of his avarice licking at my own heart. 

He asked,
Can I have them?

“My guess is the Old Man will say no.  And I don’t steal from family—unless they steal from me first.  Then I kill them.  Dead.  Not that it’s come up before.”

Oh.
  He closed his eye and drifted into pleasant dreams.  I caught a brief mental flash of a golden dragon on a mountain of gold and jewels, swimming languidly through the wealth.

Nice.  A dream I can get into.

I went to the porch, past the heroes, and didn’t even need to knock on the door.  It opened as I got there.  The four traditional house guards met me: a fire demon, one sheathed in ice, an earth demon made of pebbles, and a water demon with jade scales and yellow lantern eyes.  They saluted crisply, with great respect I still hadn’t gotten used to. 

Imari, the new First Sword, was a great believer in discipline, and since I’d given her the job, she’d rooted out some of the rot that the last First Sword had allowed to creep in the ranks.  Without Kaden’s disruptive presence, I was actually managing to sway the bulk of the clan toward the opinion that I might be just a little bit competent after all.

I passed the threshold and a summoning circle appeared under me.  The hallway floor lit up, bathing me in a silvery-blue glow.  My appearance didn’t alter.  I held out the black opal ring I’d recent started to wear.  Its black opal face grew even darker, the gray and red flecks in it shining like stars in an alien sky.  This showed I belonged here, demon or not.  Had I been an imposter, bad things would have happened to me.

Imari intercepted me a few steps on, her clawed toes clicking on the tiled floor.  Dark as suet, glossy as obsidian, she wore pale orange flames as a translucent, second skin.  She wore nothing else except a belt, sheath, and her sword of office.  She grinned a welcome.  “Old Man’s in the War Room.  He’d like you to join him.”  It was as close to an order as she could give me since we technically were equal in rank.

I pulled the copper tin out of my pocket. 
Secrets.  My secrets.  My father’s past. 
“I’ve got new intelligence I need to examine at once.  Trust me, this has priority.”

She looked at the tin case curiously.  “Very well, I’ll tell him you’re going to be delayed with your duties.”  She turned and left.  I watched her swaying ass a moment, and sighed with appreciation, and mild disgust.  Y
ou call yourself a demon?  You believe me just because I say “trust me”?  What are we coming to?

I turned from the Great hall and entered the left wing.  This took me to my suite of rooms.  The entrance had a bronze face set in the door at my eye level; the guardian.  Her lids hinged open.  She stared at me with twin ovals of blue topaz.  A flicker of magic brushed my face.  The eyes closed.  The door opened inward, a sign I’d passed inspection.  Most of the clan didn’t have such elaborate security as I used, but then, I was gifted with more paranoia than most. 

It’s a dragon thing.

I sat on a bench in the little terracotta mud-room and took off my boots, leaving them there.  I went deeper into the suite, into a living room with polished, hardwood floors.  An island of white leather loveseats and couches filled a central space making a U shape facing a massive bay window made of steel and glass.  Dangling down to partially block that view was a plasma TV supported by metal bars.  In the middle of U, a glass and chrome coffee table was loaded down with assorted grimoires, my mother’s diary, and stacked periodicals: everything from Modern Ammo, Soldiers of Fortune, Hot Rod magazine, to Ink. 

I glanced to the right, at the kitchenette and bar combo.  No Osamu.  I looked left toward several closed doors.  He was either in his own room, straightening up my study—I looked right again—or in my master bed room.  I knew the quickest way to find out.  I hollered, “Osamu!  Get out my porn collection and come out here.  I need you.”