Cat Adams - Demon Song

Warren was standing back, letting Kevin and me have it out. I could see regret and pain in his eyes. I honestly don’t believe he realized that he’d lost my trust that day and the consequence of that was just coming home to him.

Kevin just shook his head and snorted. “No. I’m not. You’ve thrown plenty of people into the line of fire for your own plans. Don’t give me that holier-than-thou bullshit.”

I walked back to the monitor but then decided instead to go to the door. There was a small bulletproof glass window set into the silver steel. I had to go up on tippy-toes to see inside, but I wanted him to see my eyes—so that he would believe what I was saying. I knocked on the glass and he turned to meet my eyes. I spoke loudly, in case the mic wasn’t strong enough to reach across the room. “Yes. I’ve thrown competent people into danger. I freely admit that. But they agreed to help. That’s the difference. I haven’t hijacked them against their will. I haven’t dismissed their intelligence. I wouldn’t have done what you did and people wouldn’t have died.” His face showed sarcastic disbelief. “Okay, fine. They might still have died. You say you paid me a compliment by trusting my skills. But you decided my intelligence couldn’t be trusted. That hurts . Face facts, Kevin. Your ego is why that plan failed. You thought you had it all figured out, thought nobody could be smarter or better. You couldn’t accept that a friend of your little sister, the sister who needed your protection, might come up with a useful strategy. That she—that I —might be just as smart and competent as you. So tell me, what makes me suddenly competent? The fact that you’re stuck in there and can’t do it yourself? You have to trust me because there’s no other choice? Well, guess what? You may not have a choice. But I do. So. No.”

I could see the final blow strike home as his eyes went from angry and self-righteous to shocked beyond words. I turned away. Warren couldn’t even look me in the face. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard a quiet voice break the silence behind me: “I’m sorry.” Warren’s apology sounded sincere, but I wasn’t ready to hear it.

“You should be.”

Jones was at the top of the stairs when I got there. “Remind me never to piss you off,” he said with raised brows. “But you do realize he’ll go insane if we don’t find his Vaso. The Company will put him down if that happens.”

I hadn’t known that. It didn’t change things enough, because most of the problem was still due to his stubbornness and his ego. “Then he should probably tell you her name. It’ll speed up finding her.”

A wry smile turned up one side of Jones’s mouth, but there was as much anger as humor in it. “He doesn’t trust me.”

I shrugged and adjusted my ball cap for the long walk back to my car. “Neither do I.” My hand was on the doorknob when something occurred to me. Jones was staring at my back. I could see his reflection in the glass, and his face held both confusion and thoughtfulness. “But … I’m not heartless. I’m willing to find the Vaso.” His brows rose until I added, “For a price,” then lowered in suspicion and anger.

“You don’t seem the mercenary type.”

I turned and stared at him calmly. “I’m not. I’m the self-preservation type.” I told him about my little run-in with Edgar the previous night. By the end of the story, Jones was openly growling and the flames of magic in his eyes were licking at his pupils. “So. You tell me what Edgar is trying to get from me and I’ll find Kevin’s Vaso. You refuse and so do I.”

His lips pursed and I could see the wheels turning in his head. He was nothing if not a smooth negotiator. “What makes you think I know?”

I chuckled. “Call it a hunch. He didn’t want my knives, even though they qualify as artifacts. The only other thing I have of any interest is the Wadjeti the sirens gave me. Is that what he wants?”

He shook his head. “Hardly. He must think you have a Millennium Horn. It does sort of make sense. We haven’t been able to find it and you are part siren.” The Millennium Horn? That sort of rang a bell, but I couldn’t place the term right away. Jones must have noticed my confusion, because he let out a small sound of exasperation and continued. “Didn’t you learn anything in college? The end of the first age of the sirens was marked by a battle with a greater demon of immense power.”

Oh! Wait, it was coming back to me. “Right. I remember now. All of the siren queens banded together to seal the rift between our reality and the demon one. The Millennium Horn—”

“Horns. There were two. If they were blown simultaneously, the psychic and magical sound would shatter the barrier between the two dimensions. The sirens, as guardians of the oceans, decided after they defeated the demon that they could never again risk a demon finding the horns.”

I was nodding now as the old folktale came back to me. “So they were hidden away and nobody ever saw them again.”

He held up his palms and shrugged. “The Company has searched for them for years.”

Why was I thinking it wasn’t to destroy them? The very thought made me shudder. “But if Edgar left the Company—”

The frown was back on Jones’s face. He put a hand on the banister. “Then he’s working for someone else. Who I don’t know. But I’d suggest that if you have an old horn hidden away somewhere, you keep it out of sight.”

“Nobody’s ever seen the Millennium Horns. There aren’t any photos, drawings, or even descriptions of them. They purged the records so there was no trace. The only way someone would recognize one is if they were around to see them the first time they were used.” And funny thing … I happened to know someone who was around. Queen Lopaka. It might be worth asking about it, especially if Edgar knew more than I did about them.

“So now I guess it’s time for you to find a Vaso.”

I sighed. I’d made the terms, and even though I had no idea how to accomplish it, I’d follow through. “I guess it is.”

11

Sometimes thebest way to think of something is to not think of it. This was not one of those times. My mind was working on two questions: who Kevin’s Vaso might be and why Edgar was looking for the Millennium Horns. The problem was I didn’t know which was more important. Night was almost here, which meant that Edgar would be out and looking for me. But how long could Kevin hold out with no way to drain his power? It had already been a full day that I knew of. How often did he need to give power to his Vaso? Did they have to do it in person? I could swear I remembered something about distance feeding from my lycanthropy classes. But maybe that just wasn’t possible in this case, and Kevin obviously didn’t want Jones or anyone else knowing his Vaso’s identity. Her cover would definitely be blown if she went to him.

My hood ornament was missing when I got back to the car. Damn it. It was probably somebody’s necklace by now, and I didn’t have time to mess around searching. I’d just order a new one from the dealership or on the Internet and deal. Hey, I still had four tires and they weren’t slashed. That was something.

The steering wheel was hard to hold with my burned hands, which were swollen and ached like I’d poured scalding water on them. I was betting they weren’t healing as fast as usual because I hadn’t eaten enough today. I hadn’t had a chance to restock the car, and though I’d seen a thousand and one food items in the little Indian convenience store, I hadn’t spotted even a single nutrition shake.

The bottom line was that by the time I got back to the office I was beyond twitchy. My pulse was throbbing in my head and every person on the street was glowing and looking tasty.