Scorched

Chapter 6

Constance let her eyes drift shut, swamped by the absolute wonder of her changing luck. A human male, wandering alone in the Castle, beating the odious Bran into the very stones of the floor? And then kissing her? She couldn’t have ordered up a fantasy more to her liking.

And to make it even better, he was the key to rescuing her son. She had to grab hold and make the most of this chance. And even through her sizzling fury with Atreus, Reynard, and the perverse curse that was her very Undead existence, she didn’t mind the grabbing.

This Conall Macmillan was devouring her, his hands roving down her back with a strength that hurt her still-healing ribs. She didn’t care about the pain. In all her days, no one had kissed her like this—all male and rising to the call of her feminine charms.

His fingers brushed her breasts. Such big hands, and yet he was so gentle.

You’re not here for pleasure. You’re here to hunt. To become a true, powerful vampire.

He fit her idea of a proper man—tall, strong, and square-jawed. His dark eyes were direct, his thick brown hair just long enough to curl. She liked the mischief that lurked around his mouth, showing itself in a darting grin.

Constance bet many a girl had made herself a fool over this fellow.

She would do no such thing. She would be sober and serious. All she had to do was bite him. The instinct was in her, made part of her when she was Turned.

At that thought, her fangs felt enormous, lethal and sharp. She tried to focus on that, instead of her aching breasts, the burn between her thighs. Sober and serious, she reminded herself. Dour as a bloody nun. Just bite him.

He cupped her backside, squeezing. A little mewing noise escaped her.

All right, if she had to sink her teeth into him, there was no reason not to enjoy the experience. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than she had to. He seemed, well, nice. Warm. Hard in all the right places. His skin tasted hot and smoky, like an exotic spice. Most of all, she approved of his enthusiasm.

Get on with it, Constance! You can’t afford to stall.

She felt his lips part from hers, cool air replacing the heat of his mouth. All her senses reached for him, clinging to his hard, male warmth. She let her eyes open a slit, just enough to make out his silhouette.

On second thought, he doesn’t smell right. It had been a long time since she’d encountered a human, but there was something decidedly off.

Bite him! If he’s not human, he’s close enough. Bite him! Bite him for Sylvius.

Her head spun. She tried to focus on the hammering beat of his heart. It echoed along her every nerve. Deli-cious. She was ready. I’m sorry, Conall Macmillan, but I need to do this for my boy.

She moved in for the strike.

“Whoa, sweetheart,” Mac said as Constance leaned into him again. “I never open a vein on the first date.”

She reached up, stroking his cheek with dainty, cold fingers. “But I have to...”

He flinched and pushed her back, staying gentle but firm. “That’s what they all say. Y’know, I’m sure there’s a support group for this sorta thing.”

She pushed his hand aside as if he were no stronger than a kitten. “I need help.”

“You have no idea.”

“I need your blood.” She was closing in again. “Uh-huh, and I need a key out of this cozy piece of hell.”

Less gently now, Mac shoved her out of his personal space. He had the sword in his hand, but he couldn’t see himself using it. Constance was dangerous, but didn’t exactly radiate evil—just desperation. That was odd, he thought. In the Castle, there was no reason she should be hungry. She closed the gap again, her eyes glinting in the uncertain light. “F6rget leaving. I don’t have a key.”

“Then who does?” Mac felt the hair on his neck lifting. The animal part of him was fast heading into the fight or flight zone. She was spooking him far worse than either Caravelli or the hellhounds. No one that soft and pretty should have such a predatory look in her eyes.

She shrugged. “Right now? I don’t know. No one ever admits it if they do. Not if they want to keep it for their own.”

Mac backed away. “If you don’t have a key and can’t tell me how to get one, then I’m outta here.”

“You can’t go. We’re not done.”

She reached for him, but he dodged her fingers. A she-vamp’s nails sliced as sharp as talons. Years in the supernatural crimes unit taught him that lesson fast, right along with just how well vamps could mess with their victims’ heads. Should’ve remembered that nugget of info five minutes ago. Then again, Constance hadn’t hit his radar as a bloodsucker, just a really pretty girl. Just his luck she had to embrace her inner Babe of Doom right when he came along.

He had to wind up this fiasco and move on. “Look, really, I’m flattered you want to drink my blood—”

She stamped her foot in frustration. “I don’t want to, you great idiot. I need to. Stay still!”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Right. Why?”

“That’s a very personal question.”

“Biting is a very personal act.”

“Oh, be quiet! This is hard enough as it is.”

“Look, I’m walking away. You stay. I go.”

“No!”

He could feel her will pushing on his mind. Nothing he couldn’t handle, but more than he would have expected. “Back off.”

“Come here.” She sprang like a cat, fingers crooked into claws. Whoa!

In an instant, the demon took over. Pure reflex. There was a sudden flash of ice cold, like a freezer door had opened beneath his ribs, and every one of his senses cut out.

Black. Silent. Stifling.

The rush of blood in his veins just...vanished. The spaces where his pulse should have been beat in his mind, but not his body. The terrifying silence beat...and beat...

And he was back, as if a switch had tripped.

Constance was still leaping toward the spot he had been standing a moment ago. Somehow he had moved a good twenty feet down the corridor. He grabbed the wall, disoriented. Huh, that hasn’t happened in a while.

She stumbled, grabbing nothing but thin air. “You turned to dust!”

Mac shook his head, although he knew it was true. Poofing to an insubstantial black cloud was a demon talent. He had done it fast, too, the way he had when he had been at the top of his game. A cold, greasy unease slithered in his gut.

Constance balled her hands in fury. “You’re a liar; you’re not human at all!”

The words hit with all the subtlety of a city bus. “Never said I was!”

He turned before a weird impulse to apologize could overtake him. I’m sorry I turned out to be a less-than-tasty treat.

“What are you? Vampires know a demon’s stink, and you barely smell!”

He was walking now, not so fast as to excite the predator in her, but not wasting any time, either. He suddenly felt hot, as if he had spiked a fever. “Flattery still won’t get you into my jugular, sweetheart.”

Mac glanced over his shoulder, making sure she wasn’t coming after him. She looked beside herself, eyes round with anger and disappointment, but she wasn’t moving. Maybe that meant she’d given up. Maybe it was because he still clutched the sword. That was one of the bizarre things about the demon-dust-travel thing. Pretty much anything he was touching came with him. Handy, but strange.

Don’t go there. If he was going to keep it together, thinking about what just happened was taboo. He wasn’t supposed to have major demon mojo. That could only mean really bad news, and the last thing he could afford to do was work himself into a panic.

Think happy thoughts. Puppies. Kittens. Beer.

Doggedly, Mac kept striding. He focused on the immediate problem of getting out of the Castle. He worked his way back to the door without passing the spot where he’d flattened Bran—neither of them needed a rerun of that encounter.

The door looked as impenetrable as ever. Mute. Solid. A scar in the endless vista of stone walls. What do I do now? Sit down and wait for someone with a key to come along?

Mac folded his arms, leaning against the wall opposite the door, and settled in to wait. A cold draft slithered over his foot. As always, he wondered where the air currents came from in a world with no sky, no wind, and no weather. Nothing in the prison ever made sense.

Take the wars. The Castle dampened magic, so most of the fighting that went on was pure brute force. Swords. Fists. Guns, if someone had them. But the no-magic rule wasn’t consistent. There were sorcerers that could still throw the odd zap of power. He’d seen werewolves shape-shift now and then. Odd things happened. Magic sometimes slid through the cracks.

He started to pace, walking a few feet to one side of the door, then the other. Slid through the cracks? The phrase nagged at him. There was something he needed to pay attention to. He could feel his cop brain struggling to find a connection.

Why had he been able to dust?

If I’m immune to the anti-magic rules here...

No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t immune. He’d somehow regained power he’d lost. That part of the Castle mojo was working in reverse. If the magic here doesn’t affect me the same way.

In the world outside the Castle, demons didn’t need no stinking keys. They came and they went as they pleased, drifting through tiny cracks and holes in their dust form.

The Castle was different. Here, demons smashed into the doorway portal like a bird into a glass window. But what if he could make it through? Slide through the cracks.

If this goes wrong...

The alternative was sitting by the door for the next millennium, like a dog waiting to go for a walk. Whatever magical blip was making him different might wear off. He could lose this chance.

If I get stuck in the portal or only half of me makes it...

Suck it up. Sometimes the only options available were bad.

Mac reached for the cold place where his rediscovered powers hid. He knew what he was doing. He knew he would regret it.

Cold shot through him with dizzying intensity, as if Jack Frost invaded his bones. The frozen sensation was stronger this time, but slower. In a fleeting glimpse, he saw his hand laced with veins of blackness, a latticework that melded and pooled as he disappeared into nothing. Bit by bit, his sensory awareness fell away as parts of him simply ceased to be.

Disintegration always followed the same sequence: edges first, then his feet, his fingers, his limbs falling away before the core of him blinked out into a smudge of darkness, an afterimage that faded away like errant smoke. This time, he held onto a smidgen of consciousness to guide him through the door. That’s all he was—a thought.

He drifted to the door, then threaded himself into a crack between two of the huge, upright planks of wood. Then it occurred to him that this wasn’t a real door at all. It just looked like one. It was a portal made of earth magic.

He had no body, but he could still feel the buzzing energy of the portal, like ants crawling over flesh that wasn’t there. He roiled, the motes of himself spinning in the wild energy, distracted, stirred to a frenzy. Pulling himself into a hard knot of darkness, he willed himself through the force field like a bullet, an image of the alley beyond like a beacon in his mind.

He popped out between two hellhounds, barely missing the elbow of one, and hurtled toward the neon sign of Naughty Nanette’s.

Mac’s laugh whispered in the rustling breeze.

Then it died when he considered what he’d just done.