"Nice?" I leaned closer to his ear. "You should see me when I get warmed up. I'm like a hemi, baby. Run all night."
"Maybe we got off on the wrong foot," Ku'Sox said, and I eased up a smidge. "I heard you almost killed Al. You made a damn fine construct for the collective. I walked it while you languished in Al's tiny kitchen, trying to survive its creation. I can admit I was wrong. You're a demon. A damn fine one. I don't care if you came from witches and the genetic engineering of elves. I myself am born from tinkering, and I'll admit that my abhorrence might have originated from my own shame."
"I'm not ashamed of where I come from," I snarled softly, my worry growing as I glanced at Pierce and Ivy, still not moving.
"I'm even impressed with how you tried to slide that curse into me," he added, eyes roving to find mine. "You forgot to include the collective, though. Good luck finding one. The demons won't help you. They want me even less than your pitiful coven does. No, you're down to one choice, and that's me."
Vivian would find me a collective. She would. I had to believe it. "You?" I said as I leaned in, my shadow covering his eyes, and he winced, his gaze finding mine at last. A grimace grew on my face as I pinned him to the cement. Ku'Sox was an ass; he was getting turned on by this. I could tell.
"I told you I liked red hair, yes?" he murmured, sand stuck to his face. "I could get to like you," he said, and I forced myself to smile back at him. "We could enjoy each other, enjoy the best of the ever-after and this world both. Just you. And me. The hell with the rest of them."
Keep him talking, I thought, feeling a weird sort of energy starting to slip from him to me. Damn it, was he trying to do a power pull? But the memory of him eating a pixy, the warrior struggling to pierce Ku'Sox's throat even as he gulped him down intruded. As if. "What about Ivy?" I asked breathlessly, glancing at her.
"Bring her along," he said. "Variety is the spice of life."
"I meant," I said in his ear, "you hurt her."
"I didn't do anything permanent." His voice betrayed his bewilderment. "You want to know the way to keep her soul after she dies, right?"
Shock quivered through me. "You know how to do that?" I warbled.
I couldn't help it. My grip eased, and Ku'Sox drew his arm to his chest, laughing low as he shifted out from under me, sitting up and turning to face me. Streaks of dirt had turned his black shirt gray, and he felt his shoulder before wiping the sand from his face and arranging his hair.
"That's better," he said, gaze taking in my rumpled body, eyes cataloging the curves and lines of my face all the way down to my borrowed shoes. "This is what you really look like?"
"You can return Ivy's soul to her when she dies?" I prompted breathlessly.
"No. I just wanted you to let go."
My jaw dropped. "You son of a bitch." I swung at him, my wrist bursting into pain when he caught my hand, inches from his face.
"Find something new to call me," he said, yanking me to him. My hand curled into a claw, and I panted through the pain. I was kneeling before him, and he pulled me closer, almost into his lap.
"I've been alone a long time," he said, his hand gripping my wrist painfully, promising me even more hurt if I struggled. "Lots of time to think of how to pleasure myself with a woman who wouldn't die at her first orgasm. Lots of time to imagine what it could be." His groping hand reached, taking the chalk from my pocket and throwing it away. "Lots of time to lose what few inhibitions I might have had."
My splat gun was next, and I struggled as he found it, slipped in the small of my back, and threw it into the nearby ocean.
"I can shift the smallest mote of energy," he said, a new depravity in his eyes, as if he wanted to strip me of everything else. "Make it dance in you."
"Promises, promises," I said, listening for the bells, but still there was nothing but the shush of the water and the crying of the gulls. It wasn't going to happen. They were too afraid, and my hope began slipping from me, leaving the sour taste of burnt amber on my soul.
"I don't want to fight you," he said, sounding reasonable as the wind moved the ends of his hair. "I'm not even asking you to submit. Simply...let me be."
Let me be. It was what I wanted. "Let you be?" I said, my gaze darting to the chalk, well out of reach.
He nodded, and my hand hurt when he let go and the blood flowed again. "You aren't wanted here," he said, his eyes lifting from me as I leaned back, the deathly silent hills watching us. "They hate you. Why are you trying to save them? This is your playground. Play! Play with me."
He was smiling, looking as beautiful as only a satisfied demon could, knowing the world was his and nothing could stop him. I felt my wrist, looking for a way out and not finding one. There was no collective to help me move the curse, no white knight in the guise of a city-wide outflowing of goodwill. They had turned their backs on me, not trusting me. The hurt part of me said screw them, but I'd been afraid before and I couldn't fault them. They were scared, and no one should die because they were scared. Not when someone else had the courage to say no.
"This isn't my playground, this is my home," I said, seeing my reflection in his eyes, my hair mussed, face flushed, and a heady hatred in my eyes. "And if you don't leave, I'm going to kick your ass out."
His head tilted and he laughed, beautiful in the sun with the ocean behind him. "Oh, Rachel, we could have had so much fun," he said when he looked back at me, the last remnants of his mirth still lingering at the corners of his mouth. "I wish I could make you last, but truly, you are too close to being a threat to survive. Right now you are alone, with absolutely no curses, vulnerable. But someday you'll be better than me. And I don't trust you."
Vulnerable. That's what Al had said. But I hadn't listened, and now all I had was what God had given me and what Trent's father had enabled me to survive. And as I squinted at Ku'Sox, hating that he thought he had power over me simply because he was stronger, my will solidified. I didn't need the damn collective. I was a coven-damned demoness.
Unaware of my thoughts, Ku'Sox reached out and snatched my wrist again, delighted as I struggled when he pulled me closer. "What, no long monologues?" I taunted him, and his expression became more domineering yet.
"No," he said, rising to keep the weight advantage. "When I see a snake, I cut off its head and have done with it. After I suck out its poison for myself, of course."
I twisted, trying to avoid his reaching hand, and he splayed his fingers. They were coated in his black aura, sparkling at the edges, and I did not want that touching me. But with a grunt of satisfaction, he thrust his hand against my face and shoved his will into mine.
I gasped as he was suddenly in my head with me, more oppressive and heavier than Al had ever hinted at. My heart pounded, and every thought of fighting vanished. Power. He had it. He was it. He had no morals. His soul was empty. He was content with what he was, confident that none could stop him. He was a day-walking demon who, like me, hadn't been born a slave to the ever-after. He could see the sun, and it gave him strength. And he wanted me dead.
Except, I wasn't a demon, I was a demoness, and that last little bit of X chromosome was going to save my ass.
You stupid son of a bitch, I thought, and then grabbed his thin soul by the short hairs, yanking it completely into mine with callous disregard.
No! Ku'Sox's aggressive sexual heat flashed into fear. His power suddenly meant nothing as my soul swallowed his, cutting him off from everything but the memory of existence.
Si peccabas, poenam meres! I thought, holding him within me as the pinpricks of the curse lifted from me, arrowing into him like flakes of iron to a magnet. And as he howled in fury, I screamed over him, I curse you, Ku'Sox, to be fixed to the ever-after, cursed be it day or night, forever bound as a demon! Facilis descensus Tartaros!
I'll kill you, you damned succubus! Ku'Sox shouted as he felt the curse lift from me and settle into him. I was a demoness, and I could hold another soul, even if it was as disgusting as Ku'Sox's. And once there, I could give him a curse, collective or not. Fix it into his very DNA so that even should he transform, it would go with him. Forever.
A heavy mallet smashed into me, and I fell off him, the connection between us breaking. The cement slammed into my back, and the sun blinded me. I blinked, trying to figure out what had happened. I was on my back, looking up at the sun. And my mouth hurt.
"Take it back! Take it back!" Ku'Sox demanded, and I propped myself up on an elbow to see him standing before me, stiff with fear.
I looked at the blood on my hand, then back to him, the sun in his face and the ocean behind him, the sky full of birds. "You lose, Ku'Sox," I said, panting as I started to smile. "I banish you. Get out of my reality."
"No!" he screamed, lunging at me.
My hands came up to fend him off, and just as his weight fell on me, I felt the line take us. He was taking me with him!
Shit, I thought, floundering as I reoriented myself, then clenched in pain as my bubble snapped into place around us. His hot anger made clouds of agony and hate rise from his mind, like the choking stink of decay. He gripped my consciousness, dragging me with him, and I felt my soul shiver in pain at the fire he poured into me.
Take it back! he demanded. Or I'll kill you here!
Try, I thought, then screamed as he began to shred my memories. I caught glimpses of my life as he burned them, taking them as his own. A blue-eyed tiger at the zoo, pacing to me as if he could walk right through the glass-and it was gone. A birthday at the hospital, him standing in the background as I blew out the candles and wished for a day without weakness-gone. One by one, Ku'Sox found my most happy thoughts and ate them, ate my soul.
Take it back, he seethed, shredding me, cutting me down to the bare bones of myself. Take it back or we'll die here together.
Gentleman's choice, I thought grimly, then punched a hole right through my protective bubble.
Infinity screamed in at us, and he let go of my mind, pushing me away as we floundered. Pain like no other crippled our thoughts. It was as exquisite an agony as angels singing the beginnings of the world, exploding the idea of infinity into reality, stripping my aura from me in sheets, scouring it layer by layer. I struggled to keep myself together.
The howling of the demons lost in the lines before us echoed, their voices caught in the moment of death forever. Out! Ku'Sox's soul shrieked, and I clutched it, a point of common ground amid the absence of anything but pain. He was struggling to keep his aura, failing. He couldn't get out of the line and was already dead. For all his strength, he didn't love, couldn't manage to tune his aura to another's, giving all, trusting. And suddenly it struck me that only the demons who knew how to love had survived.
Al, I thought, shocked to find it was a strong enough connection. A glimmer of light pierced the black pain, and Ku'Sox clawed at it, gouging my soul until memories leaked from me like tears. I'm opening the line, I thought, and Ku'Sox struggled, striving to get through the hole, failing as he ran into a barrier he couldn't see.
I'm opening the line! I thought more stridently. I'm saving your life, Ku'Sox. Remember that!
I'll kill you! he screamed, a vow to fulfill. You are dead. Dead!
Dead to you, I agreed. You will leave me and those I love alone forever! I demanded, bits of me drifting off, motes of thought sparkling in the nothing. Promise or I'll let you die here!
You are dead, he sobbed, the words becoming a promise, not a threat, capitulating as his soul began to burn. You are dead to me. You and yours are safe.
I started to shift his aura to match Al's, hard though the sound-never-heard beat at us, and the colors no one had seen blinding me. Good, I thought savagely. Because if you ever touch anyone I care about again, I'll find you. And then I'll dropkick you back in here to die with the rest of them.
A pinprick of an opening began, and he slipped from me, darting through it and closing it behind him like a trap.
He was gone. Alone, I writhed in pain, trying to scrape together enough memories to tune my own aura. I had to get out before I was shredded to nothing. I wasn't going to go to Al, who was now playing patty-cake with Ku'Sox.
The memories of those who meant the most to me flashed through my mind: Memories of Jenks, smirking at me, his hands on his hips as the sun lit his hair. The soft smile Ivy would allow herself when she thought no one could see. Trent, his face showing love as he held his daughter-and then his powerful grace when he sat atop a horse, the hounds baying and the moon lording over it all. And Pierce, a single wistful thought of a touch I'd never feel again, the soft sound of another's breathing against mine. I couldn't have him, and he loved me anyway.
One by one, I fastened on them as a way out, and one by one, my memories were ripped away by the energy screaming through me, burning until I realized that my aura was gone. There was nothing left for the line to recognize. I couldn't think fast enough, and I was going to die here amid the screeching of unbalanced energies and the forgotten souls of demons who couldn't love. In utter agony, I curled my memories around what was left and tried to see past the pain, to form another thought to prove that I wasn't dead yet. But it was too late, and terror struck me when my thoughts gave a hiccup, vanishing for an instant, then returning weaker than before.
Ms. Morgan! a panicked thought touched mine, and recoiled, leaving the scent of rock chips in the sun.
Bis? Mindless from the pain, I felt my soul start to burn. The sensation of dry grit and the sharp feel of ion-charged water grew stronger. I felt him wrap his soul around me, and yet I still burned.
Help me, Bis, I managed, and then with a ping, the shattered remnants of my soul shifted.