“Do you like my fire pit?” Erica caught her scrutiny. “A direct drop through the Underworld to the Earth’s core. It goes on for miles. I’ve thrown creatures down there, just to see how long I can hear their screaming. It takes a couple moments for that short, lovely shriek of death to reach my ears, long after they’re already burning.”
Raina didn’t respond. She saw other tunnels leading off from this one. Escape routes, or rooms for more supplies? Erica’s demons would be coming and going eventually, giving her intel on what lay beyond this chamber.
“In your pathetic attempt to determine your escape options, you haven’t noticed my newest acquisition. Other than you, of course.” Erica nodded to the far wall, where what looked like a silver flute with elaborate markings and scrollwork was laid in brackets. “With that, I can take a soul, hold on to it, make the body do as I desire. Forever. The power that thing holds will enhance my own considerably. I can use it as a battery charger. Even better than a vibrator, something I’m sure you know a great deal about, with your tedious attempt to suppress your succubus power. You won’t be doing that anymore.”
She would happily shove that thing where a vibrator would go, just to see Erica yelp. But Erica was on to another topic.
“I’m sure you’re worrying about the Dark Guardian. Don’t waste your concern. That particular male is very affirmative action. He likes his pussy as diverse as I like my weapons. You were just his latest notch. But don’t get down in the mouth about it. No one wants to be an angel’s chosen. There’s no divorce for them. They only choose one love, ever. He never has, though. Almost thirteen hundred years, if you can believe it. Too much human to him, too much darkness.”
“You can save your breath,” Raina said. “Succubi don’t look for love. He was a great piece of ass.”
“Your tongue is sharp enough to be entertaining. That’s good. The day it’s not, I’ll have it cut out. Or split. You’d look good with a forked tongue. I like altering my acquisitions, sculpting them to please my eye.” Erica glanced at her four minions, explaining their grotesque appearance. They seemed bloodlust sated, logy and almost comatose. Probably a trance spell to store their energy until she needed them. “Of course, since you’ll be serving me as a succubus, I’ll keep you intact. Best to let your looks do the work, rather than wasting that tasty energy, compelling my intended targets.”
Raina shifted to a squat, with effort since the cage was so cramped. Her flesh was pressed up against the four sides, so she couldn’t get away from anyone poking at her from the outside. When she tentatively reached out with magical senses, an unpleasant frisson of electricity sizzled through her finger joints. Shit. Erica had also put up a ward against her non-succubus magic.
The cold in the pit of her stomach was fighting to become fear, outright panic, and she viciously clamped down on it. She would never be afraid again, no matter what she faced. It was her Scarlett O’Hara oath to herself, the underlying symbolism of “I’ll never be hungry again.” I’ll never let anyone determine my destiny again. You have me now, but no one stays on guard forever. As Elceus had proven.
She wanted to believe Derek could find her. He had a long reach. He also had Ruby and Ramona for backup. Then there was Mikhael. Her heart clenched as she envisioned him on the ground again, and then before that, their…disagreement.
She knew Mikhael was right about that as well. Damn know-it-all. Her fear had been the war between wanting him to take over, to surrender to him, and how it connected to her past. Not a fear of him mastering her. All the dark chambers of her heart, mind and soul had known it, hungered to call him Master. The resistance, the fighting it…That was the way it was between them. If they pursued any kind of relationship together, it would be as much about those fights as it was the sex. They liked that about each other.
If she wasn’t so cold, so dirty, stiff and in pain, and basically at the mercy of a demon psychopath, she might have smiled over it. As it was, her eyes got that achy feeling they did when she wanted to cry but couldn’t, thank goodness.
Oh, Mikhael. She wanted to touch his face, hold him, feel his strength. She remembered what he’d said, the night she’d woken from her bad dream.
No more nightmares getting past me.
Well, you fell down on the job, Dark Guardian, so I expect you to treat me to ice cream sundaes for the rest of my life. With nuts. Hope you have deep pockets.
She felt his life spark from the blood she’d taken, but she didn’t know what that meant, if he was even conscious. She didn’t know how long a recuperation he would need from an injury that severe. Though she could feel him, it was very faint. She told herself that was geography, not a reflection of his condition. They were deep underground.
Whether or not Mikhael would try to come after her, Erica was too smart to leave any kind of trail. So Raina needed to focus on her own wits. This type of situation required being hyperalert, 100 percent attention at all times, so no opportunity would be missed. It was a macabre form of Zen. There was no past or present, only the very horrific now.
“How is it you’re even alive?” Raina asked. “I thought the Dark Guardians had kicked your asses centuries ago.”
“Lucifer felt we’d overstepped our bounds as a race. It was genocide.” Erica turned away from a cauldron, where it appeared she was cooking up something especially nasty. Her lip curled back in a sneer, her eyes fierce. “I escaped the slaughter.”
She shrugged. “In truth, I don’t miss the rest of my kind. We never cared much for one another, anyhow. More power for me now, right? Lucifer sent the Dark Guardians to wipe us out back in…” She paused, appearing to count it out on her taloned fingers. “Oh, heavens, back in 800 AD sometime. Time does fly. Mikhael wasn’t even a Dark Guardian then. Barely a hundred. Bet he was a cute, delicious little baby. Like chicken fried on a stick. Anyhow, I saw the writing on the wall. Put myself down here in a dormant state. Erased my life existence from the cosmic map. There’s a price for that kind of magic, of course. Always is. Had to be cognizant of everything, even though I was completely frozen, inert, a part of these walls. Broke free about fifty years ago and I’ve been learning, staying low. Accumulating assets. World has changed a lot, physically at least.”
Erica cocked a brow at Raina. “You think if you keep me talking, you’ll gain an advantage. Not that I want to crush that hope right away; it’s so much more fun to destroy it in various little ways over time, but I don’t want to deal with a tiresome resistance.”
The demoness pulled a hot iron from the fire, twirling it like a baton. Raina steeled herself, refusing to cringe back, forcing herself to mark what Erica was saying and not lose herself in that dull orange glow or the image of her flesh being burned by it.
“Mikhael never saw me coming,” the she-demon said. “I knocked him out with that fountain. With you gone, he won’t know I’m a phase demon. He’ll pin it on some rogue demon element, one I’ll throw in his way with your scent, your blood, and the pursuit will stop there. I feel sorry for that scapegoat. You’re a very choice piece of pussy. Mikhael will make the poor thing suffer.
“In the meantime, I’ll continue to be a shadow in the night, able to do as I wish. Especially with a soulkeeper in my possession, thanks to Isaac’s help.” Erica paused at the wall, reached out to touch the silver flute. It looked like what the Pied Piper of Hamelin would use to call children away with him. “Tally that up with an accomplished witch who also has the power of a succubus, and I scored big this week.
“Oh, and in case you’re thinking the puppies will figure it out for him, they couldn’t see me, any of us.” She glanced at her minions. “All they saw was you out there, talking to yourself and standing over his body. You should be glad of that, because otherwise I would have turned your place into a slaughterhouse. Perhaps in time we’ll go back for them, add them to my little cache. A girl can never have too many weapons, and a small army of sex demons…priceless.”
Raina closed her fingers on the bars. Erica’s eyes followed their emergence from the cage like a snake about to strike. “Why is it the villain always wants to ramble on about her plans and how clever she is?” Raina asked pleasantly. “Is it to torture her victims further? Or to prop herself up with a sense that she’s more than an evil, crazy psycho that no one really wants around?”
Erica jammed the iron through the bars, against Raina’s right breast. She screamed, no help for that, but it was a scream of rage. Those bars were her anchor point, her grip on them like the edge of a cliff. She wouldn’t fall, no matter what. The gaze she kept locked on Erica was filled with hatred and the promise of retribution, not fear. No room for fear.
She was prepared for cruel and evil; she’d been through that. The fear she’d had then, that had consumed her for so long, was eventually replaced by fury, and that had helped her break out. Rage and power had joined with her succubus blood, and she’d been willing to dive as deeply into darkness as Elceus himself to take him down.