Lilith's Amulet Page 4

  And felt instant shame.

  Maggie would not be impressed with him at the moment.

  He busied himself with starting a fire, determined to think of nothing beyond warming the room enough for him to die in peace.

  Except he realized he wasn’t likely to die.

  If he was able to sit up and think and move, the head trauma wasn’t likely to kill him. Unless he held out hope for significant brain swelling and a buildup of fluids farther down the road. The universe would rather keep him at the mercy of a partially naked vampire who wanted something.

  Haniel squinted at Lilith. Could he trust her? Chances were good she had a horrible death planned for him, or at least a long trial of agony and tribulation. He was a dead man walking.

  Strangely, the idea didn’t bother him.

  Maggie had been a woman of astounding faith despite her suffering—or perhaps because of it—and he needed to pray over her body. He hasn't been able to give her Last Rites or offer the Eucharist, but she deserved to be buried on consecrated ground. He needed closure. Worse, he needed help finding her.

  He said, “We need each other.”

  “Oh?” Lilith’s eyes glinted in the firelight.

  “Take me back to where Maggie died.”

  “No. Maggie was a human, yes? If a human had been trapped in that rubble, she’d be charred beyond recognition. Conserve your strength. You are injured and addled.”

  “I need to retrieve her body.”

  She rolled her eyes. “There’s likely no body—”

  “Then I need to see it for my own eyes.”

  Lilith pinched the bridge of her nose. He wondered if vampires could get headaches, or if it was simply a gesture of exasperation.

  “Try to understand,” she began as if he was a simpleton. In spite of the head trauma, he wasn’t confused about what his heart needed.

  “I understand you want something from me,” he cut in, “If it’s something you could take without my consent, you would already have done so. Either you help me, or I’ll make sure you never get near what you want.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  He smiled as she echoed his own thoughts. “We don’t have many options, do we?”

  Slowly, she shook her head. “What I want, it won’t be easy for you.”

  He sneered. “I don’t give a damn about easy, vampire.”

  She pulled a smoking stick from the fire and stared at the red tip. “If I take you back to Lane’s demolished estate, you will give me what I desire. Even if there is no body? Or if the body is all manner of gross, indistinguishable horrors? You’ll give me the key? No matter how steep the price?”

  She clearly didn’t believe him. She shouldn’t. Twice she’d declared the cost of compliance would be unpleasant. Whatever she planned to take from him, it would awful.

  Obviously, she’d miscalculated his desire to live.

  “I promise,” he said. “You’ll get your key.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m asking of you.”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Anything. I’ll give you anything.”

  A wry smile tipped her lip and revealed a dimple. “Here we are, a demon and a vampire, exchanging oaths and expecting each other to abide by some code of honor.”

  A lurch of hysteric air shot from his throat. The awkward chuckle didn’t bother her, and she tossed the stick back into the fire without any more discussion.

  Chapter 5

  As night fell, Lilith stirred beneath a blanket of snakes. Their bodies were stiff and cold, but she didn’t need to feel them to know they were dead. The twinges of pain that accompanied their deaths had harassed her hibernation. She didn’t dream, but she felt each of their lives pinch and gouge on the way out.

  Lilith supposed it was the universe’s way of teaching her the truth; she could create life, but she couldn’t keep her children safe. They’d die—all of them, every day—and she’d live forever. Condemned to create beautiful offspring and watch them play, fight, thrive, and ultimately perish.

  Her chest burned as if venom trickled on her heart, endlessly, drop after drop. Pressure built, scalded. The spark’s compulsion was undeniable.

  Fingers twitching, she pushed herself up and scoured the mausoleum.

  Something wasn’t right. A breeze touched her neck, and her hand flew up, landing on naked flesh. Her hair! What happened to it? Her hands frantically patted her skull and—

  Her hair was sticking straight up, entangled with sticks and grasses, tied to makeshift scaffolding.

  A demon’s practical joke.

  Seething, she glared around, looking for the pack of imps. If they were watching, she couldn’t see them. She pulled at a stick and pain zinged across her scalp. Her long hair was hopelessly tangled and knotted.

  At least she wouldn’t have to hunt for materia. She unleashed a spark of Becoming. The wood wriggled into a serpent, bent around her fingers, and wove itself back into the mess of hair atop her head.

  Her fingers sought the next twig. She could imagine it already: yellow on top with a white underbelly. When it squirmed into existence, a string of tension loosened around her ribs.

  Her newest snake curled around her fingers before arching into her hair. It wriggled through her mane, stretching its tight body, haphazardly jarring other debris. It bumped noses with the first snake, and they both reared, yanking on her curls before sliding beside each other.

  Lilith continued to transform the twigs into slithering companions. Each Becoming lessened the pressure building around her heart. Creation siphoned the oppressive power. The spark abated. For a moment, she felt safe.

  It won’t last.

  Already, the spark swelled anew.

  Her serpent brood worked through her hair, bobbing and weaving, unwinding the kinks. She turned, ready to teach Haniel a thing or two about messing with a female’s vanity.

  The fire had burned down to nothing but ash, leaving only the soft gray light of a dismal sunset to glow under the door. Haniel laid on his back, head turned to the side. Limp. She froze.

  What if he’d died?

  Wasn’t head trauma especially dangerous for humans? Had she let the key die from sheer negligence? Her heart thundered, but her eyes saw the truth: the minute flux of his veins, subtle rise of his chest, and the dance of his eyes beneath his closed lids. The devil lived.

  She stood. A thick layer of dirt, soot, and errant serpent scales coated her skin. She’d have given anything to rub hot sand on her body and scrape off the filth, creep into the dry cavern she called home, and suckle blood from a small human. Or a demon.

  A thick knot of hair fell over her eyes.

  Yeah, demon blood sounds damned good.

  If she hadn’t made a bargain mere hours earlier, she might have done something about her hunger. Taking Haniel back to Lane’s ruined villa wasn’t an inconvenience; she had to go that way to retrieve her supplies and the grimoire anyway.

  The demon’s expectations worried her. There was nothing they can do to reverse Maggie’s fate, and he was likely to throw a tantrum about that fact.

  She winced. Magic cinched like cargo straps around her chest. She hadn’t released enough of the spark yet, and if she didn’t siphon the power, it would overwhelm her.

  The last thing I need is another blackout right now.

  Her eyes caught on the leather belt encircling Haniel’s waist.

  Time for him to wake up.

  Smirking, she flicked her finger. The leather jolted and twitched. Her new creation was flat with a hog nose, capable of sliding between almost any crevice. It stretched and snooped around, tongue flickering.

  Haniel’s eyelids fluttered but don’t open.

  The serpent bobbed along a strip of skin above Haniel’s trousers and began to venture to warmer pastures.

  Haniel woke with a jolt and hollered and pawed at the serpent slouching into his pants. His alarm drew an assortment of demons across the veil, and shadows m
anifested near him. The legion scrambled to help, shoving their clawed hands into Haniel’s trousers while the ex-angel hopped about and smacked their wrists.

  Lilith wrapped her arms around her middle and guffawed.

  The flat snake slunk down his pant leg and escaped onto the floor. He shook off the minions and yanked at his waistband, peeking inside to verify no more snakes had wandered into his trousers.

  His actions revealed an interesting fact.

  He wasn't wearing underwear.

  Lilith laughed at his indecency, which wasn’t at all what she expected from an ex-angel. Her mirth echoed off the walls. He blushed.

  Five-horn caught the flat serpent in his claws and bit off its head.

  Snip. The flick of agony broke Lilith’s laugh in two.

  Five-horn chomped on the skull. The snake’s black body thrashed, and blood dripped down the minion’s chin. As he consumed earthly blood, more details filled in. His red eyes lacked irises. His long, scraggy fingers had an extra joint.

  “Don’t eat that,” Haniel chastised, grabbing the dead snake’s tail.

  “No,” Lilith said. “Let him!”

  Five-horn and Haniel gaped at her.

  “A growing boy needs sustenance,” she said, wanting the demon to manifest completely, irrevocably, so she could investigate further. “You should eat, too. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

  Haniel dropped the snake and made a face. “I’m not going to eat—”

  His stomach growled, and Five-horn laughed like a squawking parrot. Haniel swatted him, and the imp abandoned his meal and skittered away.

  Haniel eyed the serpent meat and then cast her a sideways look.

  The legion prowled around and ate the dead, both the serpent bodies and the bones from inside one of the crypts they’d broken into at some point during the day. A half-formed minion munched on dry bones, which had no effect to the corporeal nature of the beast.

  Eating bone in the graveyard hadn’t aided its manifestation, but living flesh did.

  The little bastards were vampiric in that sense.

  They needed to move, though. She didn’t have time to waste, and Haniel needed to travel whether he wanted to or not.

  Haniel sat near a newly-sculpted fire and fumbled with roasting the snake on a stick as if he’d never cooked meat before. Meanwhile, Five-horn squatted with its elbows on its knees and tossed dead snakes into the fire. Unseen hands snatched some of the pieces back out, and they ate.

  Those who consumed flesh began to manifest. Lilith clenched her fingers into fists, pulse flickering with the hope that she’d glimpse another one of the horde.

  She wasn’t disappointed.

  Two fat cones appeared on a short round body. A few morsels later, and the cones took a more definite shape. Lilith’s eyes widened. Those weren't horns, as she first assumed, but folded wing stumps. The triple-jointed construct didn't open or move while the demon tottered around. She—and Lilith decided it was a she because of the high, round curve of its chest and scrawny bones of its waist below—didn't use the wings to help balance. Instead, she dug long talons into the stone floor.

  What a fearsome creature it’ll be when fully developed and…

  Almost-wing stopped eating and disappeared.

  Five-horn slunk closer.

  “Hello, handsome,” Lilith cooed, passing him a limp snake. She could have sworn it blushed before grabbing the meat and running away. “Aren’t you a pretty brimstone-baby?”

  Haniel scowled at her, eating his roasted dinner—a meal he consumed with a sour face.

  “Stop being nice to them,” Haniel said in his haunting voice. “They’re not yours, they’re mine, and I’ll thank you to stop feeding them or trying to win them over.”

  “I can’t help it if Five-horn and Almost-wing like me.”

  He slapped the stone floor. “And stop naming them! The last thing they need is a vampire-bitch nanny.”

  “Haven’t you heard the phrase ‘you catch more flies with honey than vinegar’?”

  “Yes, and I’ve always wondered, who wants to catch flies anyway?”

  Lilith smiled, rose, and crossed the distance as quickly as she could. His eyes tightened, but he was too slow to respond to her sudden closeness. His breath stank of roasted serpents, his wet lips looked human.

  If eating helped his legion manifest physical bodies, did food make Haniel more mortal?

  Lilith thought back to a banquet decades ago when the senior vampire, Lane, had warned her never to eat food offered by fey unless she wanted to be trapped in their realm. Perhaps food tethered spiritual beings to this plane. If only she could set out a plate of cookies and trap angels.

  “It’s time to go,” she said. As an afterthought, “Can you walk?”

  He grimaced but nodded. When he stood, she noted the severe wobble to his knee and how he compensated by shifting his weight heavily to one side.

  This won’t be quick or easy.

  She considered carrying him but shook her head. The very idea of touching him sickened her heart. Besides, he was so much longer and broader than her, his size would make the task twice as awkward.

  They’d walk then, at his slow, concussed pace.

  She led the way from the mausoleum, through the graveyard. Haniel’s head swiveled as if taking in his surroundings for the first time. She didn’t imagine that being dragged across the city by a pack of demons would help one’s sense of direction.

  He limped along behind her, shivering although the night’s true chill hadn't settled in yet. Sad mortal. Why couldn’t she have found him when he was still angelic, resilient, and capable of hauling his ass around at a reasonable pace?

  He wobbled and weaved, staggered and stumbled. This was the key to her salvation? This was the answer to her confounding puzzle? Her temper hitched and rattled through her veins, scraping against her taut, agitated lungs and crowded heart. The spark pushed back at her anger, mounting it, growing excited and agitated. Pressure built, filling her organs, limbs, and bones, until even her fingernails itched.

  To take the edge off, she flicked a spark at nearby trees. A fat bough stiffened, writhed, and threw its weight. Cracked the tree in half on a hurry to reach her.

  Haniel shied from the twelve-foot snake, then shook his head and focused on each footstep.

  Chapter 6

  Boston no longer burned, but it stank like an ashen pyre. Lilith, who fancied arid air and dry seasons and nights without a single whiff of civilization or its machines, found the scent was growing on her.

  Under this sky, my only dream will come true.

  That, along with the occasional scent of sulfur lashing out when one of Haniel's demons manifests to keep him upright, made her imagine she was trekking through the underworld, heading toward Charon's boat which happened to be docked in Boston Harbor, on the way to Over-There.

  A snake curled down her arm, coiled around her wrist, poked its snout up in the air like the figurehead on a ship. She liked this one, a snake born of old bone. Sadly, it wouldn’t live long. None of them did. She wondered, what happened to its spirit when it died? Or, if it had no spirit, what became of the magic that made it squirm and writhe and act intelligently?

  She had no idea. She hated thinking about things she couldn’t know, but there she was, thinking about death again.

  As her friend, the vampire Arachne, would say: Lame.

  Lilith shook her head, forcefully, which made the serpent nest grip her harder, curling around curls, anchoring their tails on her neck, slipping down into her bodice. Longer snakes cinched around her ribs or loitered on her hips, and their bodies blocked out the jagged wind.

  Walking was one of her favorite pastimes, but tonight she wished they had a jet plane.

  Haniel lagged behind, struggling through thigh-deep snow. Invisible minions displaced tufts of white here and there as they crowded him. She thought it likely they were hoping to cushion him when he fell over.

  She patted a snake on
the head and stared. “Shall I carry you?”

  His eyes narrowed but he didn’t answer.

  Male pride.

  She waited for him to catch up, watched him toil laboriously through the snowbanks. How infuriated he must be. An angel, a being so powerful its very mention sent shudders through every creature on the globe, and there he was, unable to keep pace with a reanimated corpse.

  That male pride must be taking quite the bludgeoning.

  Acknowledging his misfortune didn’t make her empathetic. If she had a watch, she'd look pointedly at it.

  “Tell me a story,” he said.

  Her eyebrows rose. “What?”

  “My goddamn knee hurts. Distract me. How did you get here and what do you need?”

  Lilith didn’t like talking about herself, so she didn’t answer.

  Huffing and pale, he said, “If we're supposed to trust each other long enough to see this debacle to fruition, I'd like to know more about you.”

  If he fell unconscious again, at least she wouldn't have to make small talk. She could whisk him away on a sled made of snakes. Or maybe he could ride the largest snake like a pack animal.

  He snipped, “I'd like to know what the devil you’re up to.”

  She laughed at his choice of wording.

  Scowling, he said, “To hell with you.”

  Castoff arrogance, a smarting ego: she knew the feeling.

  “You want a story?” she asked. “Fine. Once upon a time, I met an intolerable, slow ex-angel and took a stroll. The end.”

  “And you're a vampire…”

  “Yes.” She nodded. After that, nothing.

  They walked on, him lurching, her pausing every few paces. She didn’t resume the conversation, and he grumbled, “You're a miserable traveling companion.”

  “I usually travel alone.”

  “Can't imagine why.” He wagged his hand at her snakes. “But you're not really alone, are you?”

  “No more than you are,” she snipped.

  What a pair we make.

  “Who created you?” Haniel put his hands on his hips and gasped for breath. “Was it Lane?”