My Darkest Passion (32 page)

Leonidas showed no sign he might regain consciousness any time soon. “The mage in that case was unconscious for over forty-eight hours. An extreme case. His condition is not your fault.” He returned to his seat. “Does anyone have a phone I can borrow?”

One of the kin sitting in the back handed up a pre-paid cell phone.

He took it. “Thank you.”

He knew the number by heart, but hell if he knew if it was safe for an oath breaker to call his former warlord. He called Maddy instead. She had, after all, called Addison to warn them both. Maddy picked up after three rings.

“Winters here.”

“It’s Harsh.” He lowered his voice. As if that would make the call any more private.

“Thank God.” He could hear her close a door somewhere. “We’ve been worried, all of us. Are you all right?”

“We have Leonidas with us.”

“Is he all right? Are
you
all right?”

“It was an indwell. That’s been terminated. He’s unconscious now, but you know what happened with Kessler under similar circumstances.”

“Sure.” She fell silent. “I’ll let Nikodemus know. Hold on a sec. We?”

“I’m with Addison. And some others. We’re on our way to you.”

“Right. Look, you watch out for her. She’s pretty wet behind the ears.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed. “You have no idea.”

“Be careful both of you. There’s a lot of unfriendlies out there right now.”

“Believe me, we are aware. When did Nikodemus lose Palo Alto?”

She didn’t answer right away. “Get yourself sworn to Nikodemus again, and we’ll talk about that. We need you here, Harsh. Nikodemus needs you.”

“Tell Kynan to meet me. He’ll know what to bring.”

She clipped off her reply as if the words tasted bitter. “Will do. You’ll be reachable at this number?”

“Probably.”

“If you haven’t heard from me before then, text me when you’re near. I’ll let you know if it’s safe.”

“Thanks.”

More silence, and he knew, because he’d once been a part of her connection to Nikodemus, that she no longer trusted him the way she used to. Then all he got was the silence of a disconnected call. He handed back the phone.

“We need to buy petrol,” Tau said.

“Don’t stop.” Harsh stared out the window, waiting, still, for that whisper of power that would tell him they’d reached Nikodemus’s territory. “Not for any reason. Not until I tell you.”

“If we don’t get petrol soon,” Tau said, “we will be stranded.”

Addison dug cash out of her pocket and pointed at a big yellow gas station sign visible from the freeway. “Be ready for trouble.”

At the gas station, Harsh got out of the van while Tau walked inside to make the cash prepayment. He stretched out the kinks of sitting in the crowded back seat, then walked a few feet away, scanning the area. He didn’t see anything unusual. Normal traffic, a few people on the sidewalk in a neighborhood that was geared toward people in cars.

His work for Nikodemus mattered, he knew that. He believed in it. He did not want to stop working for a world where the demonkind and magekind coexisted without violence. Without the enslavement or murder of the kin. He understood how much Nikodemus had given him. His freedom. A life that had meaning. Work that mattered.

Addison got out of the van, and he faced her while she strolled over to grab a handful of paper towels and the squeegee. He ended up addressing her back when she went to work on the van’s windows. “Ramp it down.”

“What?” She turned around. “Why?” Water dripped from the squeegee.

Tau came out of the shop and trotted over to their station to pump the gas he’d paid for. But for the dull sound of traffic from the freeway and the surface streets, the area was quiet. There was one other car getting gas, and the wrinkled, white-haired driver was leaning against the side of his truck, arms folded over his chest while he waited for his tank to fill. She glanced at Tau, then faced him, and he forced himself to see who and what she was now, not the woman he’d kept in his mind all these months. Not the woman Maddy had been thinking of.

“Please.” He touched three fingers to his forehead. “We are not in safe territory yet. There’s no need to advertise we’re here.”

“All right.” She went completely vanilla. “But, if I’m passing, shouldn’t the rest of us be doing the same? Isn’t a human in the company of demons kind of a tip-off to mages that something is up?” She wriggled the fingers of one hand. “Oh, that human chick. She’s a little bit messed up. We don’t care about that.”

But of course, she needed the facts. “Any warlord walking into this territory, so recently held by Nikodemus? You might as well announce you intend to take it.”

In the middle of this, Tau left the gas pump and took the squeegee from Addison. He sent a cool look Harsh’s direction before he addressed Addison. “Do you want to?”

Harsh’s stomach bottomed out, but Tau was right. If she wanted territory of her own, she was more than capable of holding it. Tau stood at her side, and his silent presence was a cold, hard reminder that whatever Addison O’Henry had been eighteen months ago wasn’t what she was now. “You could,” he said. “If you wanted to.”

“Should I?” She wasn’t asking permission, she was asking for his opinion. Tau sent them both a look and took over washing the van windows.

“I don’t think it would be wise yet. Not without thought and planning. And not without considering what effect that would have on Nikodemus and his plans. It’s possible he gave up the territory for a reason.”

She nodded. “Makes sense.”

Tau snorted.

“No,” she said. “Harsh is right. We should meet up with Nikodemus and find out what’s up before we do anything.” She shoved her hands in her back pockets. The stance made her shirt ride up and Harsh was briefly inundated with lust. She shrugged. “If there’s something I need to know, tell me. You have experience with all this. Share it. I’m a fast learner.”

While Tau finished the windows, the gas pump clicked. About time. Harsh put away the pump and closed the gas cap. “Let’s get out of here.”

Tau finished up with the windows and headed for the driver’s side while Addison reached for the passenger-side door. Inside the van, Leonidas came to.

In a quiet voice, Addison said, “Whoa.”

Without thinking, Harsh put himself between the van and Addison. So much for all the talk about the lot of them passing for vanilla. Tau drew on his magic, because, oh hell yes, Leonidas was a mage to be reckoned with, and who knew what state he’d be in now that he was conscious?

Harsh opened the side door and found the Canadian demon had already grabbed the mage by the throat. For the first time, Harsh drew exclusively on his other power, white hot, because Leonidas was a threat to Addison, and with Tau and the others to back him up, it was this power that would be most effective now. He leaned close to the mage. “Try anything, Leonidas, and I will kill you.”

Leonidas lifted his hands. With the other demon’s hands on his throat, he couldn’t speak yet. The Canadian gave Harsh a querying look and when Harsh nodded, he loosened his grip.

The mage sucked in a breath. Despite everything he’d been through, his clothes shouted elegance; testament to good fabric and custom tailoring. Leonidas had been the one to teach Harsh about the joys of a bespoke suit. The mage’s London tailor was doing a lot of work for demons sworn to Nikodemus. He straightened out his suit before saying, “When did you decide to embrace the dark side, Dr. Marit?”

“Did you willingly break your oath to Nikodemus?” Harsh asked.

The mage’s eyes narrowed. “What am I to make of the fact that you’re already sworn to another warlord?”

Addison slipped between Harsh and the side of the van. She glanced around the interior and then smiled as she stuck out her hand. “Leonidas, right? Addison O’Henry.”

Harsh reached in and pushed Leonidas’s arm away. “No touching.”

Leonidas’s eyebrows shot up. “A pleasure to meet you, Ms. O’Henry.”

“Are you going to be a problem?” she asked.

“I don’t know, warlord.” He ran a hand over the top of his head. “I’m not entirely sure what happened. Enough, I suppose, to know that—” He focused past Addison’s shoulder.

“What?” she said.

He shuddered. “Magehelds.” When he looked up, his face was ashen. “I don’t care for these new tactics. In my day, we’d never—”

Harsh moved away from the van door and pulled Leonidas out. He wasn’t steady on his feet yet. A non-consensual indwell took a physical and mental toll on the victim. Tau moved closer to Addison. “Well,” Leonidas said with a quick glance at Addison and then Tau. “Well now,” he said softly. “Isn’t this interesting?”

Tau looked the mage in the eye. “If you draw any magic, I will kill you.”

“Understood.” Leonidas made a show of straightening his clothes.

“How many?” Harsh said.

“You tell me. Oh, come now.” His smile was smug. “Concentrate, Marit, and no doubt you’ll feel them as well.”

Tau touched a finger to Leonidas’s forehead. “This is not the time for games,” he said in a voice that sent a shiver down Harsh’s spine. “Maybe we should kill him now, warlord. If we wait until we’re sure he needs it, it might be too late.”

Like the shiver of wind through the air, Harsh felt…something. Leonidas, head tilted back from the pressure of Tau’s fingers on his head, met Harsh’s eyes. “How many, doctor?” the mage asked.

“Two coming up from behind. Two others farther away but heading that way.” He pointed to the shop.

“Very good. There’s one more. Moving at a speed that suggests he’s driving or a passenger in a moving vehicle. He’s with five mages.” About the time he finished speaking, the mages came within range.

“Five of them?” Addison rolled her eyes, and Harsh got a shot of heat down his spine. “Could they just leave us alone for one fucking day?” She opened the passenger-side door. “I don’t like those odds. Tau, Harsh, let’s get out of here. You too, Leonidas. If you want.” She gave him a bright smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t let Tau kill you unless Harsh says it’s okay.”

34

O
ne of the many downsides to Harsh’s hybridism was that he was sometimes in no mood for the sort of physical closeness that came with five large men crammed in the back of a van intended to comfortably seat three kids and a dog. About now, Harsh would have killed for six inches of space around him and none of the psychic pressures imposed by the proximity of a mage and other kin.

The only person less comfortable than him was Leonidas. The mage was jammed into the space between Tau’s legs and the back of the driver’s seat. It didn’t make Harsh feel any better.

“What the hell?” Leonidas said.

“Yes?”

“Her.” Leonidas tipped his head in Addison’s direction. “Nikodemus for her?”

“You’re hardly one to talk, mage.”

“You’re sleeping with her, too.”

“Watch your words, Leonidas. This conversation is not private.”

“They never are with the kin.”

“Oh, don’t mind me. Go on,” Addison said. “This is getting interesting. I think the mage was about to call me the W word.”

“You’re alive because I asked her not to kill you, and she complied. Don’t make me regret my forbearance.”

“I never thought you’d be the one to betray Nikodemus. He trusted you. We all trusted you.”

His made a fist and when he realized it, forced himself to relax. Leonidas had been one of the first mages to agree, at no small cost, to give up his magehelds. He had walked away from considerable power because he’d come to believe what he and his kind were doing was wrong. He’d been a trusted ally. “He trusted you, too.”

“The indwell was not my doing.” The mage scowled. “I did not consent.”

“Nor did I consent to the actions that broke my oath to Nikodemus.”

“Did she do that?”

“Giuseppe Infante did.”

Leonidas adjusted his position on the floor, but there was no way for him to be comfortable in that small a space. He gave a rather savage grin. “Nikodemus will kill him for that.”

“She already did.”

He stared hard in Addison’s direction, though he had no line of sight to her. “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Addison craned herself around the side of her seat. “What Harsh isn’t telling you is I promised to release him from his oath. As soon as we see Nikodemus, everything will be back the way it was. Sorry if that ruins your mood.”

“I wasn’t going to call you a whore.”

“You have a dirty mind, mage. I thought you were going to call me a wanker.”

“You don’t have the equipment.”

“Keep it up and neither will you.”

“I wouldn’t risk it if I were you,” Harsh said.

Just past San Francisco International Addison sat straight. Seconds later, Harsh felt it, too; the effect of crossing the new border into Nikodemus’s territory. The other kin reacted as well.

It wasn’t the relief he’d thought it would be. The threat was darker than he remembered. More ominous. The magic pulsed through him with such force that he wondered if Nikodemus might have brought in the boundaries of his influence in order to create just this concentrated effect.

Whatever the cause, this was significant power. The kin in the back with him exchanged glances. Worried. Serious. Impressed with the fact that this territory was held by a demon of power unheard of in centuries.

No shit
.

He managed, just, not to give voice to the sentiment. The farther in they went, the deeper and darker the sensation became. Not just powerful magic. Mind blowing. It hadn’t been like this when he left on the journey that had, eventually, brought him to San Diego, he knew that for certain.

“Wow.” Addison turned around on the seat and spoke softly. “Nikodemus doesn’t fuck around, does he?”

“No.” He watched Addison carefully. Of them all, she would have the most intense and nuanced response.

She made a face. “How the hell could someone who feels like this” —she waved a hand— “cede anything to anyone?” Her eyes were mostly human, but there were flecks of icy blue in them. She was young, so young to have the power she did and be able to carry it. What would she do without an experienced advisor? Tau might step up, but did Tau understand enough about demons in this part of the world to be effective?