Christine Warren: Huntress

I opened the front door and turned back to Grady. “It’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission,” I said.

“But not necessarily wiser,” Grady mumbled.

The area of London where the ring led me was filled with brothels, pubs, and opium dens. It was dark, dirty, and dangerous. No respectable person would ever walk these streets. It was exactly the sort of place I would expect to find a woman like Barbara. I reached up and knocked on the roof of the carriage, and it rolled to a stop.

“Do you know which building?” Grady asked as we got out.

“No,” I replied. “But it will be somewhere in this block.”

We walked in silence for a while, until I caught sight of a man crossing the street at the end of the block. I grabbed Grady’s arm and pushed him back against the building. Flattening my back to the wall, I watched. The man wore a long coat and a hat pulled down low over his eyes, but it was definitely Michael. I knew it by the way he walked, the way he moved. Even at a distance I would know him anywhere.

He didn’t seem to sense our presence, so Grady and I slowly followed. At the corner, I stopped and peered around the edge of the building. The road was long and narrow, cramped with shops and tenements, and littered with refuse. Barbara stood outside the door to one of the shops, feeding on a human. She held the man with his arms pulled behind his back as her teeth pierced his throat. I knew she hadn’t bothered to bespell him because he was struggling to pull free of her.

I heard Michael’s voice say something to her, but I couldn’t hear what it was. She looked up, blood staining her full lips, and smiled. Then, with such practiced ease that I jerked back in surprise, she snapped the neck of the man she had been feeding from. It wasn’t often that someone committed an executable offense right in front of me. When you were the executioner they tended not to do that.

Michael entered the building and Barbara followed him, dragging the body of her victim behind her. Slowly I walked down the street, Grady following me. When I reached the solid, windowless metal door they had used, I paused and placed my hand on it, listening. I could hear muffled human voices from within, but no sound of Barbara or Michael.

As quietly as possible, I pushed the door open. When I didn’t sense any vampires in the immediate area, I walked inside. The large, dimly lit room was crammed with rows of cots, nearly all of which were occupied by a human man or woman. Insensible, they lay there, either unconscious or muttering words that had no meaning except in their clouded minds. I wrinkled my nose. Barbara’s victim had been dumped unceremoniously just inside the door, and the entire place reeked of unwashed bodies and opium.

“What is this place?” I asked Grady.

“It’s an opium nest,” he replied. “Vampires purchase the opium and the humans come here for the drug.”

“And then the vampires feed from them,” I said.

He shrugged. “Human blood laced with opium is quite a sensation, they say. The High King has declared opium nests to be illegal, but it’s hard to put a stop to them. You close one down and they just reopen another elsewhere.”

I looked around, noting a door at the opposite end of the room. “I’ll be back shortly. You stay here in case any vampires decide to drop by for dinner. I’m sure, as a known warden, you won’t have any problem deterring them from coming in. I don’t want to worry about the possibility that one of these opium-laced vamps might be loyal to Barbara or that demon and alert them to my presence.”

“Cin?” Grady asked. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Not remotely , I thought. All I knew was that the man I loved was in this building. The demon might be in possession of his body, but Michael was somewhere inside, trapped. It was reckless and irresponsible, I realized that, but I was drawn to him like a moth to the flame. I just needed to know that his body, at least, was unharmed.

There was a dark hallway beyond the door. Empty rooms opened off either side of the hall, but it was the big metal door at the end that beckoned me. Cautiously I crept up to it and listened.

“I have not fulfilled the terms of my summoning,” Michael’s voice said, and I stifled a sigh of relief that he was all right.

I should have left then, but Barbara’s next words stopped me.

“He doesn’t care about that,” Barbara insisted. “All he wants is her dead. He says you’re to kill her tonight.”

Michael sighed. “I grow weary of this conversation.”

There was a rustling of fabric and then Barbara said, low and throaty, “Then perhaps there are other ways I can convince you. I do love the feel of this body.”

Before I was even aware of what I was doing I’d thrown open the steel door and strode into the room. Barbara was standing with her thin body pressed against my husband’s. She turned her head in surprise and then smiled.

“My, isn’t this convenient?” she said.

Michael was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before, but his shirt was open and the talisman gleamed against his skin. Barbara’s hands moved inside his shirt, boldly caressing the rigid muscles of his chest. I wanted to grab her by the hair and slam her face into the wall. I did neither of those things, though. I just stood there, realizing too late what a stupid thing I’d just done. Michael cocked his head to one side.

“The females of your species seem to be unusually attracted to this form,” he said.

That was an understatement. Michael had the face of an angel and a body many women would walk through hell to possess. And Barbara was about to get the opportunity to put that to the test if she didn’t get her hands off of him. Unfortunately for her, she was as stupid as she looked. Instead of stepping away, she turned and pulled his head down to hers for a kiss.

Michael’s eyes watched me as she ground her lips against his before her tongue slid inside. I felt the tears well up in my eyes and my stomach rolled in revulsion. Michael pulled away from her, still watching my face.

“Oh, look,” Barbara said. “She’s jealous.”

He inhaled deeply, as if he could scent what I was feeling. “No,” he said. “That isn’t jealousy. That is raw hatred.”

Barbara’s eyes went from him to me. I caught her gaze and let her see every bit of the white-hot anger that was boiling inside me.

“You will die for that,” I said, barely recognizing my own voice, it was laced with so much violence. “And for killing the human. But mostly for that.”

Under the weight of my icy glare, she backed away from Michael.

Michael took a step toward me, a curious expression on his face. “The thought of this body lying with another female brings you pain. It’s almost too bad I have no interest in fornication. I should like to see exactly how much that might torture you.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Some demons, such as incubi and succubi, gained their power through sex. This one fed off of pain and death. It didn’t seem to be a better trade, but at the moment I was grateful for it.

“Kill her!” Barbara screeched. “Kill her now!”

Michael turned sharply and hissed at her. “I told you, I have not fulfilled the terms of my summoning. I agreed to cause the Red Witch unimaginable pain and then to take her body. I cannot do the second until I’ve done the first.”

“Sebastian releases you from your oath,” Barbara said. “Kill her!”

Michael shook his head. “I do not know this man, Sebastian. My agreement was with the wizard who summoned me, and only he can renegotiate the terms. But he is dead now, the first of my kills.”