Читать книгу The Brightest Embers - Jeaniene Frost - Страница 19

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

DEMETRIUS’S FULL APPEARANCE became visible in the mirror, so I caught it when he winced, as if being reminded of our new familial tie had caused him actual pain. I’d hoped it would. It certainly stung me a lot.

“Never call me that again,” he bit out.

“Believe me,” I said, glaring at him. “I find it mutually repellant.”

Demetrius was one of those demons who looked like a regular person. He had unremarkable features, black hair, pale skin and a wide mouth, so Adrian must have gotten his gorgeous golden looks from his mother. A closer inspection revealed that a writhing mass of darkness clung to Demetrius’s outline. His shadows had once been far larger and more impressive, and they weren’t Demetrius’s only trick. He was also a shape-shifter.

The first time I’d seen him, Demetrius had morphed into a huge dark cloud with flesh-ripping claws and teeth. That form had been beyond terrifying, which was why he’d chosen it. Demetrius was as cruel as he was inventive.

“What, no congratulations on the happy news?” I continued to needle him. “It’s a shame you missed the wedding. It was thrown together last-minute, but still, it was beautiful—”

“Speak softer, before Adrian hears you and storms in here,” Demetrius snarled.

He’d revealed a lot with that statement. While Demetrius could have guessed that Adrian was with me in general, he shouldn’t have known that Adrian was close enough to possibly overhear us. Unless...

“You have minions watching us right now, don’t you?” I said, trying not to show how much that freaked me out.

Demetrius rolled his coal-black eyes. “Of course I do.”

I casually crossed my arms behind my back so my hands were hidden from his view. Demetrius had never seen my staff tattoo, but he was well acquainted with my slingshot. I’d decimated his formerly immense shadows with it, and the last thing I wanted was Demetrius seeing that it was missing. Then he’d know that I’d lost my only deadly form of defense against him.

“If you’ve got minions tailing us, why haven’t you used them to try to kill me?” The danger I’d unknowingly put everyone in made my stomach roil, but I managed to ask the question as if the answer only mildly interested me.

Demetrius smiled, and the sight of it sent chills rippling over my skin. I’d never known that a smile could be a messenger of evil before I’d met Demetrius.

“Because at this particular moment in time, I’m not trying to kill you.”

“You’re not, huh?” I said while getting my rattled nerves back under control. It couldn’t be because he’d had a change of heart—Demetrius hated me. That was clear in his burning ebony gaze. But he must have something else up his sleeve. “I don’t imagine we have long before Adrian figures out that something else is going on besides me having digestive issues, so if you don’t want me dead, what do you want?”

“You’ve been here too long to still be searching Vatican City for the spearhead, so why haven’t you left?”

His arrogance was astounding. He thought I owed him an explanation for my recent activities?

“Yeah, this has been nice, but you can go fuck off now,” I said, heading for the door.

“Wait!” The command in his tone didn’t make me pause, but his next words did. “It’s because you’ve given up looking for the spearhead, haven’t you?”

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he sounded disappointed. I swung around in disbelief. “What’s it to you, demon?”

“More than you realize, Davidian,” he said, giving the same insulting emphasis to my lineage as I’d given to his species.

Why? Demetrius had pulled out all the stops to prevent me from finding the first two hallowed weapons. How could he suddenly have something invested in my finding the final one? “How so? I know you don’t care about freeing the trapped humans, and that’s all the third weapon’s good for.”

“Simple. Twit,” Demetrius said, sounding out each insult as if I wouldn’t understand them otherwise. “Did you truly believe that was the spearhead’s only power?”

I bristled. “Zach never said it could do anything else—”

Demetrius’s laughter cut me off. The demon even bent over, as if his spine couldn’t bear the weight of his mirth.

“What’s so funny?” I asked acidly.

He held out a hand as if too overcome to audibly ask me to wait while he attempted to control his mirth. Well, screw him! I was more than halfway to the door when Demetrius, still chuckling, said, “You can leave now, but Adrian’s life depends on you staying to hear me out.”

I stopped, still fuming, but unwilling to let my pride cause me to miss out on possibly useful information just because I hated its source. Demetrius was evil, but in his own twisted way, he loved Adrian. He’d even let me escape once after he’d gotten the drop on me because Adrian had been dying, and I’d had access to the manna that could save him. If Demetrius said that refusing to hear him out could cost Adrian his life...then there was a fifty-fifty chance that he might be telling the truth.

Besides, he knew where I’d been these past several weeks. Hallowed ground might stop him, but it was no barrier to minions, as the attack at the Mother See in Armenia reminded me.

“Make it quick,” I said shortly.

“Zach didn’t tell you that the spearhead has another, equally powerful function, but is that a shock?” Demetrius asked, his voice a taunting purr. “Archons might not lie, but even you can’t be so obtuse as to believe that one would tell you, a mere human, the entire truth if he didn’t want to.”

Zach did have an infuriating tendency to leave out a lot of important details. Case in point—Demetrius being Adrian’s father. Zach had kept that bombshell a secret for years.

“Fine. What else can the spearhead do, if I were to find it and wield it?”

Demetrius’s eye roll was contemptuous. “You? No one believes you could wield it long enough to do anything other than turn into a pile of bones.”

His continued insults had me tapping my foot to keep from hurling curses at him. “Don’t draw out the drama, Demetrius.”

He smiled, showing all of his teeth. “Let’s pretend a miracle happened and you didn’t die wielding it. You know that the spearhead would cause special, human-only gateways to open in all the realms, thus providing a way for those miserable meat bags to escape. But if a demon harnessed the spearhead’s power, another type of gateway would open in all the realms, and this one would allow my kind free passage back and forth again.”

I stared at him. Yes, I knew every hallowed item could be turned dark. That was why demons had wanted David’s sling. In my hands, it killed demons, but in their hands, it could kill Archons. Likewise, Moses’s staff had sealed up the realm walls when I used it, but if demons had wielded it, it would have sent them crashing down. In context, I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me that if the spearhead were turned dark, its other purpose would be the exact opposite of its hallowed one.

And if that happened, everything I’d done to help people would get undone. It would be hell on earth in no time, and here I was, without any hallowed weapons to fight it because they had disappeared when I’d renounced my destiny.

I was reeling from horror and guilt, but one question roared to the surface. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I don’t want that to happen.” After my instant scoff, he said, “Yes, under other circumstances, I would love nothing more than to have the realm gateways reopen. Aside from the obvious, I’m sick of being stuck in a small slice of your rotten world. However, whoever wields the spearhead would have complete control over the gateways, and that, my dear despised Davidian, I cannot abide.”

Now his concern made sense, and of course, his own selfishness was at its core. “That would make the spearhead-wielding demon top dog over you, wouldn’t it?”

He shrugged, but there was nothing casual in his gaze. “I’m not the only demon who doesn’t want a king. We had one once, and it did not suit. We might have minor power struggles, but no demon since Lucifer has ever had the chance to rule all of us. This would change that.”

I couldn’t care less if Demetrius chafed at the thought of being ruled. In fact, his misery would make my day, if it didn’t come at such a high cost. I couldn’t stand the thought of the demon realms reopening, and the demon staring at me knew it.

“So you want me to find the spearhead to stop another demon from finding and using it.”

“Yes,” he said, a nasty gleam appearing in his eyes. “And do try to wield it if you do. Having you implode from its power while simultaneously saving me from being under a king’s rule would be—what does your race call it?—a win-win.”

I almost flipped him off, but I stopped myself because I didn’t want to flash my non-tattooed right hand at him. “Yeah, well, I’m not going to do that,” I said shortly.

He cocked his head. “Which, go after the spearhead, or attempt to wield it?”

I glared at him. “Guess.”

He shrugged. “Could be either after your soul-tying to Adrian.” At my confused look, he said in an almost kindly tone, “You do realize that’s the reason for your newfound apathy toward the humans trapped in my realms, don’t you? Otherwise, you would have never abandoned those mortal meat bags to certain death just to ensure your own happiness.”

“I didn’t abandon them. I couldn’t have saved them, anyway!” I snapped, fighting a wave of familiar guilt.

“Oh, you are correct,” Demetrius said, coming forward until another inch would have caused him to breach the mirror. “You never stood a chance because you are weak, Davidian, and this only proves it. When you and my son wrapped your souls around the deepest parts of each other in that tethering ritual, his didn’t come away lighter, but yours came away darker, and that darkness only continues to grow.”