Rest For The Wicked(39)
“We only have an hour, and that includes travel time to the cliffs, so we need to get started. I don’t know how long this will—”
“You cannot do this, Claire.” Marcus grabbed her arm, started to pull her aside for what she knew would be a persuasive argument.
“It is already done. I just need you to help me—I need you to—” Unable to continue, she met his eyes, relieved that she saw only anger there. “I can’t touch what I need to use to break the ward, and I will need time—to adjust when you release—”
“Stop.” He cradled her face, let out a sigh. “Whatever you need. How long has it been?”
“Eighty years.”
“Gods.” He scrubbed at his face. “How strong were you?”
“I was what you would call a first lieutenant, before I was banished. I answered to only two, and my master was one of them.”
“Who, Claire.”
She swallowed, braced herself, and whispered the name.
“Azazel.”
It hung in the air, as if the name itself had weight, substance. She knew saying it pushed at the door that Natasha cracked open, but Marcus had the right to know what he was up against.
“Were you one of the fallen?” She closed her eyes briefly, nodded. “You must be at the top of the most hunted list.”
She let out a harsh laugh. “At the very least.”
“I will gather what we need to—”
“Plan on letting me in on the joke?” They turned around at Eric’s voice. He watched them, arms crossed, anger and fear rolling off him. “What the hell is going on?”
“Eric.” Claire crossed over to him, touched his wrist. “I’m going to need your help, and it is going to be for something you’ll have a hard time believing in. The knife has to be iron,” she called after Marcus as he headed for the door, ignoring the wash of dread at the thought of iron touching her. “Solid, if you can find it. And hurry, Marcus, please.”
“Claire.” Eric moved back, out of touching range. She didn’t expect the rejection to hurt as much as it did. “What are you saying—”
“I am a demon.” She held his gaze, watched the shock, the disbelief flare in the blue depths. “And the woman you know as Natasha—she’s a demon as well. She killed your sister to buy her way home.”
“Right.” He laughed, the sound hollow. “And the next thing you’re going to say is you’re her meal ticket home.”
“Got it on the first go.” She held her ground when he stumbled backward, his face white. “I am so sorry, Eric. If I had known, I would have stopped her. But my power—it’s buried behind a ward, and I didn’t see her for what she was until I came face to face. By then it was too late, for your sister. For more people that we most likely don’t know about.”
“And you want me to—”
“Break the ward.”
He rubbed one hand over his mouth. “Why me?”
“Because.” Marcus stalked toward them, his hands full. “You are the only human in the room.”
*
Eric needed to sit down after that revelation.
He actually needed to run as far as he could as fast as he could, but Annie was still in danger, and his only way to find her meant sticking with the two people watching him. The two people who weren’t people.
“I’m sorry for the shock, Eric,” Claire said. “But we don’t have the time to be gentle—”
“Annie—” He didn’t want to believe that she wasn’t the vibrant person he had fallen hard for, that she wasn’t human—but he had to know.
“As human as you, Eric. She has power, but it is the pure power of a white witch.”
“A—witch.” That explained the effect she had on him, when he was—not himself.
“Don’t you dare hold that against her. She is the most compassionate, loving person I know. And she has no idea what I—she doesn’t know about me.” Claire closed her eyes briefly, then stepped back, her voice all business. She stripped off her jacket, started unbuttoning her shirt. “The office will work best—it’s a confined space, and you can use the desk to bind me.”
God protect me—
He turned on Marcus. “And what the hell are you? Another demon?”
“I am Jinn—and there is no time to tell you all I am.”
They looked the same—no sudden transformation just because he knew the truth. How was he supposed to believe when they looked just like they did before he knew—
“I can’t do this.”
Claire turned on him so fast he didn’t have time to retreat. Fingers dug into his wrist—fingers that shouldn’t have been that strong.