Meljean Brook - Demon Marked

“What do you mean, am I your moth—” She broke off. “Can’t you tell by looking?”

“I know demons can shape-shift.” How ignorant did she think he was?

She blinked. “We can?”

Jesus, even a bargain didn’t stop her from playing stupid. A direct question, then. She couldn’t evade that.

“Are you that demon?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Her lips pursed briefly. “I don’t know who I am, so if I can shape-shift, I suppose that means I could be anyone. But I saw Madelyn St. Croix, or someone who could have been her twin, and she wasn’t me.”

Whoever she saw could have been any demon shape-shifted—but most likely, the other demon had been Madelyn. So Nicholas had to accept that this wasn’t Madelyn . . . and that she truly didn’t know who she was.

He fought his disappointment. Even if this demon didn’t remember who she was, that didn’t mean she had no other useful knowledge.

“Where is Madelyn now?”

“I don’t know.”

For God’s sake. With effort, Nicholas concealed his frustration. “Who gave you the code to the house?”

“I don’t know. The pattern was familiar, and I just . . . entered it.” She demonstrated in the air, as if inputting a number into a keypad, then spread her hands. “But I don’t remember where I learned the code.”

Nicholas frowned. The bargain bound her to the truth. But how could she have no memory, yet know something as specific as a numerical code? “Did you come to this house in the past month?”

“No.”

Then Madelyn had. “When was the last time you were in contact with her?”

“Almost three years ago, when she left me at Nightingale House.”

Exactly as she’d claimed earlier. Nothing she’d said contradicted anything from before the bargain. Nicholas hadn’t expected that. Either she was manipulating him in some brilliant way that he couldn’t comprehend . . . or she had been telling the truth all along.

He didn’t know what to think of that. So he could only press on, and try to figure out her game after he found Madelyn.

“How did Madelyn escape from Hell?”

After breaking the Rules and killing a human, Madelyn should have been punished by Lucifer, and either tortured or slain. Six years wouldn’t have been long enough of a punishment—let alone three years, if this demon spoke the truth about when Madelyn had left her at Nightingale House.

She should have been punished in Hell . . . and even if she had escaped the Pit, Madelyn shouldn’t have been able to leave the realm. Almost three years ago, Lucifer had lost a wager with a Guardian, and every portal between Earth and Hell had been closed. They wouldn’t reopen for another five hundred years, and every demon who’d been in Hell would remain in that realm until the Gates opened again.

Almost three years . . .

Shit. The timing was exactly right. Somehow, Madelyn had escaped from Hell just before the Gates closed.

Had she brought this demon with her?

The demon shook her head. “I don’t know how she escaped Hell. I didn’t even know that Hell is a real place.”

How could that be true? “Then where were you before Nightingale House?”

Demons were creatures of habit. If Madelyn had hidden in a specific location between the time she escaped from Hell and left this demon at the psychiatric hospital, she might return there to conceal herself again.

“I don’t remember. Before Nightingale House, I don’t remember anything clearly. Only that Madelyn and I were . . . somewhere. I don’t know where. There was someone else with us. He cut these marks into me. His voice was so big—more painful than the knife.” She closed her eyes. “And I was frightened.”

For the first time, strong emotion came through in the tremble of her voice, in the clenching of her hands. But by the time she looked at him again, he couldn’t see any fear. Only expectation. Perhaps a faint hope.

And for an instant, he believed it was hope. As if she wasn’t acting, but truly thought he had answers for her.

God, he was in over his head. He didn’t even know if this memory loss she claimed was possible. Maybe none of this was true. Maybe she’d already broken a bargain with someone else and had nothing to lose by lying to him now. Before he went any further, he had to find out.

He set the crossbow on the mattress and retrieved his mobile phone. “Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t talk.”

She only lifted her eyebrows as if to ask where she would go, and watched from the edge of the bed as he found Rosalia’s number in his list of contacts.

The Guardian didn’t like him, but she’d answer any questions he had—and she was one of the few people he trusted to be honest with him. Three hundred years ago, her father had also been replaced by a demon; she understood his quest for vengeance better than anyone else could. She’d taught him how to search for Madelyn, to distinguish demons from humans, and which weapons would be most effective against one of their kind. Most demons and Guardians fought with swords, but in a physical match, pitting a demon against a human was no contest at all. Nicholas wasn’t fast or strong enough to pose a threat. Knowing the Rules—that a demon couldn’t fight him or hurt him—evened the odds. So did knowing their susceptibility to electric shock, and how to kill or slow them down.

Rosalia answered on the third ring, her rich Italian accent rolling over his name. “Nicholas.”

No need to ask why he was calling. He only contacted her when she was useful to him—when he had a question for her.

“Have you ever heard of a demon with amnesia?”

“Amnesia? No.”

That’s all he wanted to know. “All right—”

“But I’ve heard of those with their memories stripped away.”

He frowned. On the bed, the demon had straightened, her gaze locked on the phone. She could hear everything they both said, and there was probably no point speaking in Italian rather than English. He’d never heard of a demon who hadn’t lived on Earth long enough to pick up almost every human language.

But then, he’d never heard of a demon with her memories stripped, either.

“Why would that happen?” He switched to Italian and watched the demon’s brow furrow with confusion. Maybe an act . . . but he didn’t think so.

“As punishment, if they’d upset Lucifer—or just because he didn’t want the demon to know something.”

Perhaps that was what had happened to this demon. It didn’t explain how or why she resembled Rachel, but he found punishment easier to believe than a demon breaking a bargain.

“Just tell me, Rosalia: Even if the demon had no memory, would you still slay them?”

“Of course, unless it was more useful at the time to keep them alive. But I’d slay them eventually—and I’d be wary all the while it was alive. A demon’s nature doesn’t change, even if its memories do. The rebel angels who followed Lucifer were physically transformed into demons, but their new forms only revealed what they were inside. So never forget that they are evil, Nicholas. Every single one of them.”

He eyed the demon. “I suppose a former nun doesn’t call someone ‘evil’ lightly.”

To his surprise, Rosalia laughed. “No, I don’t.”

“What are you saying?” The demon got to her feet and started toward him. She froze when Nicholas showed her the remote device again. Her fingers curled at her thighs. Frustration? If so, good. She ought to feel a little of what Nicholas had, talking to her and receiving no answers at all.

She looked to the phone. “This woman knows more about demons than you? Who is she? Can I speak with her?”