Kilian huffed. “I would say no one would embrace demonic energy for something that stupid, but they would.” Kilian had long ago stopped being shocked at what people would or would not do, and that was before Stephen's mother had sacrificed her son to a demon. “But I don't think it's a good idea for me to take blood from you again.”
“What? You think it's going to make us both so horny that we’re going to end up rolling around in the hay, unable to control the rampant lust flowing through our strong, supple bodies?” Stephen rolled his hips and stroked his sides. “Maybe you're afraid the Army is going to sneak up on us as we are lost in each other's gaze and our cocks are sunk into each other's bodies.” His tone was dark and husky.
“I’m fairly sure only one cock gets to be sunk into a body at a time,” Kilian said dryly. “If you know how to get both cocks sunk into holes at the same time, I am going to suggest that either you have a faulty understanding of human physiology or you are envisioning something particularly demonic that I don't want to think about.”
Stephen snorted hard enough that snot sprayed across the dusty dash. He wiped his hand through it, creating long streaks of pseudo-clean plastic that matched the mud streaks on the windshield.
“I'm less concerned about uncontrollable lust than I am the possibility that your blood may have triggered this,” Kilian explained.
Stephen threw his hands in the air. “I thought we settled this. I didn’t attack you. I am feeling very defensive here. Just because I'm possessed by a demon does not give everyone the right to blame me for everything that goes wrong in life.” Stephen tried to poke Kilian’s shoulder, but Kilian captured his hand and held on. He was getting a sore spot from the repeated assaults.
“I didn’t say you were attacking me,” Kilian said, “but I was attacked after I fed on you. If witch’s blood is one of the most powerful ingredients in the supernatural world, an ingredient capable of opening a dimensional lock, then I have to imagine demonic blood is even more powerful. Even if you're not the one attacking me, your blood might fuel someone else's spell.”
“Even if,” Stephen muttered under his breath.
Kilian felt a burst of guilt at calling Stephen's honesty into question, but Stephen was possessed by a demon. That did tarnish his reputation. Both Stephen and Mia were on the list of suspects. She was a witch who enjoyed power, and Stephen was a demon who needed to escape. Both had motives. Kilian didn’t know how attacking him would help either, but that didn’t mean he could trust them.
“Do you think the coven we took out in South America could have had some sort of booby-trap on the house? Could I have stepped through some spell? If they'd had something like an inugami, it might want to avenge its owner.” Kilian hated the idea that some loyal creature had died to make that possible, but if someone had twisted the inugami spell enough that it didn’t set off the base alarms, that might explain his illness.
Stephen grimaced. “I am seriously hoping we don't have an inugami. I'm a demon, and even I am not evil enough to kill a dog with enough loyalty and love that you can enslave its soul. There is something seriously wrong with humans. I’m a demon, and I’m saying that.”
“You’re not a demon. You’re a screwed-up baby witch who someone shoved a demon into, and I'm not arguing,” Kilian assured him. In a lifetime of fighting the supernatural, inugami were a special sort of evil, but if someone had twisted the spell, it might explain the desperation he’d felt when he’d been attacked.
“The problem is that the second the master’s soul is in the next life, the dog goes with it. That's a good reason to kill anyone who makes one because the poor dog deserves rest.”
Kilian frowned as he realized that Stephen had detailed knowledge of inugami, which were a fairly esoteric corner of conjuring, and almost unknown outside of Japan. Kilian wouldn’t know about them if the unit hadn’t run into one in Hawaii. “Before your mother's spell, you were supposedly a perfectly innocent teenager. Why do you know about inugami?”
“I was a pathetic and dorky teenager—that does not imply innocence.” Stephen finally put his feet on the floor, but he still didn’t reclaim his hand from Kilian’s grip. “In fact, being a normal teenager tends to preclude innocence. However, to answer your question, Mom was looking at all sorts of spells trying to find a way to combat the symptoms of Parkinson's. I read her book on familiars searching for something helpful.”
“Did she try to make one?”
Stephen pulled his hand away and smoothed his hair back. It was a good two or three minutes before he answered. “Ironically, she considered that spell morally wrong.” Stephen studied the deeply shadowed farmland that ran beside the highway. “I don't know what's worse, her willingness to put more value on a dog than me, or the fact that I killed myself for her. I'm thinking there was a lot of psychological dysfunction in that house.” Stephen pressed his lips together, and Kilian had an irrational urge to track Susan Nguyen down in Hell and shoot her in the face. She wouldn’t be more dead, but he’d feel better.
“I won’t argue.”
Stephen shot him a grin. “Smart man.”
Kilian changed the subject. “So, not a spectral dog, but they could have set up some other booby-trap.”
Stephen considered it. “Maybe. It would have to be a pretty esoteric spell for me not to recognize it.”
“Reading some books your mother brought home does not make you an expert on all things supernatural.” It took a team of researchers to feed intel to Army teams, and Kilian still felt as if they went in blind at least half the time. He understood supernatural creatures’ desire to protect their own lines, and he wouldn’t want the Army to have a comprehensive list of ways to kill him, but it would’ve been convenient if someone could’ve given them access to that sort of accurate info.
“No, but if there's something powerful in the area, I feel it. That's the whole reason I could teleport us to South America. That ritual was pulling so much power that it was a drumbeat that reverberated through the planet.”
“If they were beating that drum loud enough in the demonic summoning ritual, is it possible the noise drowned other sounds?”
Stephen chewed on his lower lip and developed a thoughtful expression. “Maybe.”
“Should we go back to that house and search for signs of another spell?” Bodily fluids should be able to create a strong enough connection to the van for Stephen to transport them back afterward.
“No can do,” Stephen said. “With the ritual over, I can’t find the place again.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.” Stephen sighed. “Phenomenal cosmic powers are not as helpful as one might think.”
Kilian understood the sentiment. He’d assumed he would’ve been a better Ranger after becoming a vamp. Not so much. He’d still let his team die. “Then we hope Silas can help us. At the very least, he will be concerned about a supernatural creature targeting vamps.” Hopefully. The alternative was that Silas would be homicidally angry at being woken. Before he had gone to sleep, he had been so frustrated with the whole world.
