“You punched me! You punched me in the face! Oh, you Reeds. Always so surprising!” He was still laughing, squeezing the words out between bouts of glee.
“You took my father’s soul, you dick. You used it as some kind of a bullshit bargain for over a year. I should do more than punch you.”
He pulled his hand away and glanced at his palm, looking for blood or whatever passed as blood for demons. He nodded as he dabbed at his nose one more time. “I took his soul, true. But the deal we agreed upon was very real. There have been no demons in Ordinary in the time since his death.”
“There have never been any demons in Ordinary!” Yes, I was yelling.
He narrowed his eyes. “That is not…true. And not what I meant, exactly. You do know that the vampire who has penetrated your borders isn’t doing it on his own, isn’t getting his own hands dirty.”
My fingers automatically flickered up to the bite on my neck. He watched, and nodded.
“Yes, he attacked you–outside of Ordinary. But the other attacks, inside? How do you think he has been facilitating that?”
I’d assumed he was using vampires, or humans, or some kind of blood magic. But I knew, then, that moment, what Bathin was getting at.
“Demons?”
“We come in every shape, every size. We are very difficult to detect. We possess bodies of humans, of creatures, animals, inanimate objects. We are, in every way, an invisible army. Infinitely mobile, undetected and destructive. Who can say how many of your friends, family, have been possessed? Who can say how many mortals filling the stores, the streets, the beaches are possessed?”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. It made sense in a way few things had lately. Ryder’s boss Frank, was he possessed? The vampire hunters? Sven? The hit-and-run zombie vampire?
“I thought you just said there were no demons in Ordinary.”
“No demons in their own form. No demons under full power. No demons who were not beneath their own control. No demons who were beneath anyone’s control. I will admit there were some…issues in my guarantee.”
“Issues?” I was back to yelling. It didn’t seem to bother him one bit.
“The vampire? Lavius is very old. And….” He scowled. “He has powers I was not aware of. Once I had taken your father’s soul, he insisted we remain trapped here. His idea, not mine. It limited my ability to follow through on every level of my commitment. That vampire.”
A flicker of hatred so hot it left a burning impression behind my eyelids flashed over his face, as if for a moment, he had been nothing but fire and pain and anger. “That vampire nearly caused me to break my word. I find it…unacceptable.”
He didn’t like Lavius. He might even hate him. I wanted to take comfort in that, to hope that if he had to be the possessor of my soul that he would at least be the enemy of my enemy and all that.
“Now, you have given me your word. I will have your soul. As we agreed. I will not be denied.”
This time it wasn’t a burning flash of hatred filling his eyes. It was fire, hot and hypnotic, rising from his entire body, shaping him, changing him as he strode the few steps toward me again.
When he stopped he was three times as large as he had just been, his legs bent at the knees and powerfully thick, his chest bare and brutally muscled, his neck thick enough to support his head and the massive ebony horns that curled like a ram’s downward along the sides of his face to either side of his shoulders.
Fire licked over every inch of his skin, rattled and hissed like electric snakes dripping down his blackened horns and lit his eyes to a bloody red.
The demon’s true form.
“Very dramatic,” I said.
He paused, half a step closer to me. “Dramatic?”
I waved a finger. “Do you think that shape frightens me? Do you think seeing a creature in a natural state is something that would make me swoon?”
“I…it is imposing. I am imposing.”
“Not sure I agree. You’re the first demon I’ve ever met, so I have nothing to compare you to. But trust me, buddy.” And here I dropped my eyes to between his legs, where he wore a carefully twisted loincloth of some kind. I shook my head. “I’ve seen better.”
His chuckle was low and slow and licked somewhere deep down inside me. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like that he could touch me in those deep places. In the places where no one else could touch, where no one else could find me.
In my soul.
“I see,” he said. “I knew I was trading up. Your father is a complex and interesting man. You must know that. His soul at my disposal, even though he was dead…that was an exquisite thing.” He took a step closer to me, and another.
