Forged in Fire Read online

  Warm hands cupped my face, shocking me to gaze up at the owner. Jude blocked my view of the sign, forcing me to look only at him. His mask of metal melted into softer lines. His gaze held something I’d never seen before—a gentle, coaxing tenderness. I pulled back from the brink.

  “Genevieve.” He used the sultry voice. I was listening. “I will not let anything harm you in this place. No one will even touch you. Do you understand?”

  For a moment, I only stared, feeling the sensation of his warm palms against my cheekbones, mesmerized by the flecks of gold in his eyes. At the same time, he poured another layer of armor, of illusion, over my own. I could drown in this sense of serenity. I was safe with him.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” I finally muttered.

  “Good girl.”

  A small smile, then he took my hand and led me into the mouth of hell.

  I glued myself to his back as we passed down a dark, narrow passageway into an open, empty courtyard. He let me move ahead, guiding me into the dimly lit bar with his palm at the small of my back, never removing his hands from my body. I guessed that he must only be able to cast illusion on someone else if he were physically touching them.

  Immediately upon crossing the threshold from the courtyard, I felt a physical punch of fear slam into my soul as if my spirit might just up and vacate the premises with or without me. A large hand slipped under my hair, wrapping firmly but gently around the nape of my neck. I shivered, hoping Jude would assume it was from the dark decor of the club and not the effect his touch had on me.

  Mindy’s favorite new club, Tartarus, was like glitter-Goth or the freakin’ Mickey Mouse Clubhouse compared to this joint. Painted skulls adorned posts and bar tops. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were real skulls. Wooden cages instead of booths sat in every room, where black-bedecked patrons did unseemly things to each other. Wait, what were those two doing? Eww. Good God. Get a room.

  As we rounded each corner, sinister demons stared from artwork adorning the walls. The one that disturbed me the most was the horned devil in black and white, holding a goblet of red liquid in one hand and a still-beating heart in the other.

  The patrons paid no attention to me but watched Jude with a fierce scowl. I’d already targeted two passersby as demons with red-glinting eyes, including the biker dude behind the bar. Most were simply humans who lived left of center. An albino-pale guy with a shaved head passed us, dressed completely in black from head to toe. He held something in one tattooed hand, a chain, which draped over his left shoulder. I followed the silver line connecting to a spiked choker wrapped around a petite brunette’s throat. Ghostlike with black lipstick, she wore a red corset and skintight leggings. She actually smiled at me as she passed. My VS reached out, touching on the girl’s psyche for the briefest of seconds. In that moment, I knew the girl was not being kidnapped or oppressed in any way. Quite the contrary, she was filled with ecstasy in her current state as a demeaned animal.

  Seriously?

  I would never let a guy chain me like a dog and drag me around. Then I laughed inwardly at my absurdity as Jude guided me by the back of my neck up a narrow stairwell, leading me like a marionette.

  My wandering reverie stilled as we mounted the stairwell. Bone-deep dread pounded into me. As we reached the second floor, a song blared at an ear-splitting level. I recognized “Burn” by In This Moment right away. Couples were sort of dancing, grinding in a slow, fluid motion—an odd paradox to the violent beauty of the song.

  The vocalist, Maria Brink, didn’t exactly sing the lyrics, more like said them in a singsong way. Words about suffering as a blessing, death as life, and burning right before your eyes. The air of this place scraped at my Vessel shell, trying to get in. I trembled but fixed my face like stone, locking my jaw. Jude stopped me, leaning close.

  “Breathe, Genevieve.”

  His lips brushed the top of my ear. I hadn’t realized it, but he was right. I’d actually stopped breathing. On the far wall sat a throne below a mounted dragon’s head. In the corner of the room was a wooden perch where a huge black raven stared at the crowd. For a second, I thought it was real, but it didn’t move or blink. I wondered how long the lifelike statue had been there. The eerie words of Edgar Allan Poe filtered through my mind: And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting…and his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming. The urge to run kept shoving at me.

  A throng of Dungeon groupies sipped from goblets in true Goth style surrounding the one on the throne. I wondered if I’d stepped into a vampire coven, but as we all know, vampires don’t exist.

  Maria Brink screamed the word “burn” in a long, agonizing wail as if she were literally on fire. The sensation of walking directly toward a dark creature who would snatch the chance to own me like an animal, like the girl on the leash, with a woman screaming about burning alive sent me into a state of surrealism. I might have an out-of-body experience at any moment.

  The man, if you can call him that, wore black dress pants, an expensive-looking white button-down with silver cuff links. He held a clear glass with crimson liquid and whispered intimately to a corseted, red-lipped blonde propped on the edge of his throne. I noticed a pewter skull ring on his forefinger. Silver studs pierced pretty much everything, lining his earlobes all the way up the cartilage. If it weren’t for all the metal crap in his face, he might’ve been attractive. The blonde’s cleavage spilled out of her top when she leaned forward for his pleasure. The creature’s eyes grazed her a moment longer before turning his attention to us.

  Annoyance skittered across his eyes when he saw Jude. And something else. Jude nodded.

  “Dommiel.”

  The man pulled himself more upright, taking a sip from his glass.

  “Greetings, Jude,” he crooned as if a Dominus Daemonum stepping into his lair were an everyday occurrence. He tipped his glass up in a toast, “To the saint of lost causes.”

  I didn’t miss the underlying insult. I glanced at Jude, seeing his eyes wiped clear of any light, his expression like granite. Apparently, he caught it too. Jude had that look about him when he’s examining every minute detail, trying to discover what’s hidden beneath.

  Fixing my gaze on our host, I shuddered. His eyes had flickered to me. Though I couldn’t tell their exact color as he observed from the shadows, one thing was for certain. There was no sign of the fiery-red hue coloring the irises of the other demons I’d seen so far. There was also no doubt in my mind, body or soul that this thing was in fact a demon. A high one.

  “Mmmmm. You’ve brought me a gift?” he asked, letting his gaze rove up and down my body. “Overdressed but quite delectable. Come on, Jude. I’ll give you mine if you give me yours.”

  The blonde slid Jude a seductive smile, tilting her voluptuous body so he could see all she had to offer. Apparently, this proposition was nothing new to her. My green-eyed monster laid her ears back and hissed.

  Jude repositioned himself directly behind me, moving his hand to wrap around my right hip. It was an act of possession. Not in any romantic sort of way, mind you. This was the way Jude did things. Subtle moves to let you know where you stood in his book. Right now he was telling this Dommiel dude I was in no way up for grabs. I pressed back into the wall behind me, the six-foot-five wall of muscle and badass attitude, just so our host knew how I felt on the topic of swapping. Dommiel smiled, revealing a row of perfect gleaming-white teeth.

  “So, Jude. If you’re not here to share, then for what purpose do I owe this pleasure?”

  His words lilted like liquid, one word pouring into the next.

  “There’s another high demon in your territory.”

  An unpleasant frown deepened Dommiel’s brow, hooding his eyes further.

  “None of my brethren would venture into my domain without proper homage.”

  “None, Dommiel? You don’t know your kin like I do.”

  Jude’s voice rumbled low and deep, vibrating t
hrough his chest to my back. Dommiel clinked his skull ring against the glass in thought.

  “You are lying, Master of Demons,” he replied with poison in his voice. “It is against our rules. Why have you come here?”

  Rules. I needed a seriously long discussion with Jude on more of these damn rules.

  “Obviously, there is something you do not know.”

  Cold drifted over me, like a draft when you’re cozy in your warm bed and someone yanks the covers off you. I sucked in a short breath, knowing Jude had lifted his shield of illusion. Fear reared its ugly head, threatening to swallow me whole. His hand tightened on my hip, a warning to keep still.

  Dommiel watched me with interest. There was a shift in the air. He set his glass down on a table at an insanely slow pace. A dawning flickered over his features. His creased brow straightened to a blank slate, then contorted into a mixture of feverish anger and desire. He growled deep in his chest. I don’t know what happened next, because things moved literally too fast for me to see. One second I was pressed hard to the front of Jude; the next I was behind him. He had Dommiel on his knees before him with a long dagger pricking the hollow of the demon’s throat. Seriously, I was standing there fearing for my life, then I blinked and Dommiel was cowering before Jude.

  The raven in the corner cawed. It was real! The groupies shrank back, losing their façade of Goth-cool, except for the one who wasn’t human. A lower demon, which I discerned more easily now that I’d been in the presence of one of his superiors, lurched forward. Jude put his free hand palm out and chanted three words in Latin. The demon bounced off an invisible wall and fell to the ground in a stupor. Jude then gripped Dommiel’s shoulder and pressed the dagger blade so that a drop of black liquid trickled out, staining his pretty white shirt.

  Jude inclined his head to Dommiel. From this angle, I could see that first emotion shining bright in Dommiel’s eyes, the one he’d hidden the second he saw Jude walk in the door—pure, raw fear. His lips bared in a snarl, revealing a row of pointed teeth, two canines much longer than the others. What the hell? I thought vampires didn’t exist! The grating tone in Jude’s voice made me take a step back, and he was on my side.

  “If you or any one of your minions come near her, touch her, think of her or even breathe her name in your sleep, I will hunt you down and send you back to the real dungeon in such miniscule pieces that they will never…” Jude paused, shoving the point an inch into the demon’s neck. Black oozed out. “They will never put you back together again.”

  Dommiel made a choking noise but nodded obedience immediately. Jude dropped him, grabbed my hand and led me back out the way we’d come, still holding the dagger in his right hand. I didn’t protest. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Before we’d descended the stairs, Jude had shielded me again. I felt an electric snap, diluting the fear I’d been swimming in since he’d removed it. He slid the dagger into a sheath under his jacket as we made our way past the courtyard and through the claustrophobic pathway into the street.

  We walked two blocks without saying a word. I had no idea where we were going now, and I didn’t really care. My mind raced, repeating the scene over and over. My emotions stewed into a whirlpool—fear, safety, anger, relief, then finally pissed-off-beyond-belief. We’d moved past Jackson Square onto Ursulines Street. The crowds thinned. Only a group of three ambled down the walkway, laughing as they went. The joyful noise of the city infuriated me more. Everyone was going about their happy little lives, not knowing that creatures of the underworld lurked at every corner, waiting to prey on them.

  I jerked my hand away and crossed my arms, walking on in silence. I felt his eyes on me but refused to meet them. His safety blanket of illusion vanished, leaving me cold again, making me even more furious.

  “Why are you angry?”

  I came to a halt, putting my hands on my waist. “Are you kidding me? What were you thinking taking me into that, that cesspool!”

  My instincts weren’t so far off with the whole minnow/shark-tank analogy.

  “I had to know if he was the one trying to capture you. There was only one way to find out.”

  “Like hell! I can think of a million ways, like go in by yourself and do your demon-hunter mojo thing and say ‘Hey. Know anything about a Vessel?’ Get your answers, then go on your merry way.”

  Not that Jude did anything in a merry way.

  “He’s a demon, a high demon, a master in the art of deception. I could never trust his words.”

  “Why did you show him that I was a Vessel? Now he knows who I am, what I look like. It’ll be pretty damn easy for him to find me now!”

  I felt what was coming. The inescapable physical reaction most women have when a catharsis of emotions boils over. Hot tears welled in my eyes, trailing down my face, though I refused to make a sound. Jude stepped closer. I stepped back. He stopped, unreadable thoughts swimming in his black eyes. He glanced toward Jackson Square, then back at me.

  “Give me your hand, Genevieve.”

  He held his hand out, palm up, waiting.

  “I want answers. Why did you set me up like that? You used me like bait.”

  I couldn’t keep the hurt from my voice. His hand was still outstretched.

  “High demons can deceive all creatures, human and otherwise. They have difficulty disguising emotion. I brought you to achieve two things, which I did. One, to establish that Dommiel was not the one behind the demon at the club the night I met you or the would-be abductors at your father’s dojo. His violent reaction upon realizing you were, in fact, a Vessel confirmed my assumption. Two, to make him understand that you are in no way a possession he is allowed to add to his collection. Give me your hand. Now.”

  Okay. That was a lot to absorb. I wiped my face with the sleeve of my red jacket. I put my hand in his, feeling a sudden snap of Jude armor. We walked on.

  “Could you really do that? Cut him into a bunch of pieces?”

  A sharp nod.

  “But he wouldn’t die?”

  A shake of the head.

  “Demons don’t die. They move into different realms and shift forms, but they never die.”

  I sighed heavily, feeling the weight of the world bearing down on me. How was I supposed to beat these guys if they couldn’t be killed? How was I ever going to have any peace again?

  “However,” continued Jude, “there are places they can be sent and states to which they can be expelled where a millennium is not long enough for them to regenerate.”

  “Okay. I’m assuming by places, you mean the place down there,” I said, pointing.

  He chuckled. The closest thing to a laugh I’d ever heard from him.

  “It’s not actually in the earth. That’s a myth.”

  “Well, I know,” I snapped, though my Catholic upbringing had filled my head with Danté’s version of hell. A dark, fiery pit deep underground. “Speaking of myths, what’s up with the fangs? You said there were no vampires.”

  “There are no vampires. Raw emotion draws the true beast out. You’ll notice the eyes and mouth transform at times like this, sometimes more.”

  “Wait. Hold up. Explain this to me, then. That’s not what Dommiel truly looks like? He looks worse than that?”

  Another laugh.

  Wow, I was on a roll.

  “High demons have a permanent humanlike form.”

  “Humanlike? Nice.”

  “This may resemble their appearance before the Fall. Their perversions in hell and on earth have distorted them. They hide the beast within to live amongst humans, corrupting their souls as they go.”

  “Great,” I sighed.

  “You wanted answers.”

  “Sort of like Dorian Gray, right?”

  He paused, glancing at me, obviously considering my literary reference. “I suppose, yet their portrait is concealed right beneath the surface not hidden in a room in their mansion. They can also shape-shift into other forms, animals, elements. They all have their favorite crea
ture they like to mimic, typically keeping one around.”

  “Like a familiar? Like with witches?”

  “Genevieve, there’s no such thing as witches.”

  “Yeah, well, he sure did look like a creepy-ass vamp tonight. And you said there were none of those.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” he said, his gaze drifting to mine. “The truth is far worse than Hollywood’s glittery version of undead monsters.”

  “So, Dommiel’s familiar is a raven? I saw it in the corner of the room.”

  “Yes. Not a natural raven either. High demons create unnatural spawn.”

  I sighed again, feeling like I had an endless stash of puffed-up air that had to be released. I knew this world was real now, but I could hardly process it all.

  We passed under a gas lamp and stopped. We stood outside of Jude’s home. As much as I felt protected in his presence, I feared being alone with him in his house more than anything else right now. We appeared to be a romantic couple, holding hands along the sidewalk, but he was right. Appearances can be deceiving. He wasn’t exactly human. He was my protector, not a suitor for my affections. I wanted to know why he was protecting me, but decided to save that discussion for Monday. It was late, and I was exhausted—physically and emotionally. I needed to clarify one more thing.

  “I can feel your layer of illusion when you touch me. Dommiel could see straight through mine, but not yours. Will I ever be able to hide myself from them on my own?”

  I needed to know this. I needed to know there would come a time when I could protect myself. He didn’t respond at first, gazing at my hand held in his.

  “Yes. You’re still in your awakening. I have no timetable, but, one day, you won’t need me to shield you.”

  His eyes met mine, pools of pitch. No emotion whatsoever glimmered there. A shiver trembled through me.

  “Come. Let’s get you home.”

  Whew. No sleepover. He led us back toward the street, letting go of my hand. I scanned the cars to determine which one might be his. My eyes landed on a “mode of transportation” with badass R-and-B written all over it. I knew exactly what it was, because I thumbed through Erik’s magazines at the dojo in between classes, secretly fascinated by beautiful, hot, fast machines.