Deep Dark Secret (Secret McQueen #3) 3

With him being pulled backwards and me trying to move us forward, we were stuck in a void between worlds. I’d never noticed before how cold the air was, or how little of it there was to breathe. I sucked in a deep breath, but it felt like swallowing ashes.

“Desmond,” I choked.

His eyes were shut tight, tears welling at the corners, and then he began to dig his fingers harder into my arm. The pain shocked me into action and, after a breathless tug threatened to yank us back once and for all, I forced us onward.

The entrance to Starbucks vanished, and the Oracle’s waiting room appeared.

When I turned, Desmond was still with me, wide-eyed, holding my hand tighter than ever. I looked down at his fingers and swallowed hard. His hand had partially shifted, just like my own earlier that week. His nails were dark with my blood and buried a half-inch deep in my skin. When I looked back at his eyes the pupils were shifting, changing from human to wolf even as I watched.

I’d managed to break Calliope’s no-werewolves-allowed rule, and now I was getting an in-your-face visual on why she’d made it in the first place.

I could only think of one thing to do.

I slapped him as hard as I could and, doing my best Cher impression, demanded, “Snap out of it.”

He shuddered, but his hand dropped from my wrist and his eyes shifted back to normal. Barely through the door and we were already in way over our heads. Story of my life.

I had to find Calliope and get what we needed so we could get out of here tout suite.

The Oracle in question was nestled in the lap of a young man who was eighteen, give or take a year. I knew she had a tendency to feed off teenagers, but I’d never witnessed her in the process of doing it. Calliope fed on two things: fresh blood and aura energy. Since there didn’t appear to be any open wounds on the entranced minor, I gathered she was stealing bits of his aura.

It was a hell of a thing to see, and it seemed to pull Desmond more into the here and now.

The kid’s head was haloed in a purplish light, and Calliope was drinking it in from his open mouth. Her aura was a radiant blend of color, different bits and pieces stolen from a variety of pizza-delivery boys and lost coffee-shop patrons. Extending out from her aura were two nearly transparent wings, more like a dragonfly’s than a butterfly’s, but unmistakably fairy in origin. I’d never seen any evidence of the Oracle’s fairy half before and had long believed it was manifested only in her immortality and general lack of concern for humans.

Apparently I was wrong.

“Should we be helping him?” Desmond asked, stirring Calliope from her feeding trance. Desmond got his first good look at the immortal’s famous face and whispered, “Holy shit.” Guess he was feeling a bit better.

“I know. It’s a little off-putting the first time.”

He looked around the room, his traveling gaze lighting upon the Andy Warhol portrait, then back to Calliope, who appeared none too pleased. “Wow.”

“Secret, what is this?”

“You’re the Oracle, Cal. Didn’t see this one coming?”

She rose from the stunned boy’s lap, and he stared straight ahead like the enthralled detectives back at the police station. Ignoring me, she fixed her attention on Desmond. “Give me your hands, wolf,” she demanded.

Guess she was allowed to be a little cranky when I showed up unannounced, breaking one of her cardinal rules and interrupting her midnight snack. Desmond looked at me for help, but I nodded. It wasn’t that long ago Calliope had my own hands in hers and told me a truth I wasn’t willing to hear. I glanced at my left palm, my right hand still occupied with the swords, and wondered if I was making a huge mistake by accepting Lucas’s proposal. The shortened lifeline stared back at me, giving me no answers, just mocking me with its presence.

“You must never come here again,” Calliope warned Desmond, but she wasn’t focused on him. Instead she was running her fingernails over the werewolf’s palms, occasionally sniffing or quirking a brow. “Interesting,” she said at last, dropping his hands. She turned from him to me and then back again. “Very interesting.” This time she smiled.

“What?” he asked.

“Never you mind,” she said, winking at him, all of her former grumpiness fading and her usual carefree, no-worries self shining back through, then she turned her full attention to me. “I told you you’d be back.”

“Who am I to argue with fate?”

“Fates,” she corrected. “And don’t. They never forget a slight.”

“I gather you don’t know why I’m here.”

“I was a little preoccupied.” She gave the dozing boy a mournful glance. “He tasted like grape Kool-Aid. Delightful.”

Instead of letting her wax poetic about her young visitor’s youthful flavor, I cut to the chase. “What do you know about a demon who can steal identities?”

She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “All demons can to some extent, though most do it by necessity.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Most demons can’t manifest on Earth without a host. Like how some diseases won’t function in the body until they attach to cells. Demons can’t maintain a presence on earth without a carrier. And usually the carrier is the person who summoned them. A sorcerer or a witch in most cases.”

“How long does the…manifestation last?”

“Depends on the strength of the summoner. Some of the weaker ones will invoke a low-level demon for a half-hour, sort of like an adrenaline rush or a drug high. If a practitioner were to invoke a demon outside their capacity for control, though? The consequences could be disastrous.”

“Could a demon ever manifest as multiple humans?”

“A really old, powerful one might be able to, given enough time.”

“How long would a demon have to be earthbound in order to manifest, say…six or seven different forms?”

Calliope let out a low whistle. “If it were possible?”

“Trust me. It is.”

The Oracle shook her head. “Centuries. If it can shift manifestations easily? Possibly a thousand years or more.” She gave me a serious look. “Are you hunting an old one?”

“The oldest,” I agreed with a nod.

“No wonder I couldn’t see you coming tonight,” she said with a sigh.

“Why?” Desmond asked, breaking his silence.

“I can only see those with a certain future.” Calliope took my hand and squeezed it. “The minute you crossed a demon, your future went out the window.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Tell me something I don’t already know.” I forced a smile, but it must have come out wrong because Calliope didn’t look impressed. “I need your help finding the demon. I’ll take care of my own uncertain future after that.”

Desmond took the broadsword out of my hand, lightening my burden considerably.

Calliope sighed again. “Do you have anything to connect you to the demon?”

“I’ll say. Damn thing sucked out a whack of my memories and walked around Midtown Manhattan wearing my face.”

“I can work with that.”

We followed her out of the waiting room, Desmond taking one last look at the boy who had fallen asleep smiling. “Are you sure he’s okay?”

“Of course he’s okay,” Calliope replied, somewhat indignantly. “Do I look like a monster to you?”

Desmond, smart werewolf boyfriend that he was, said nothing. Calliope’s house could expand and contract in size according to necessity. The mansion was especially large today, meaning she had a full house. When we came to a stop in front of an intimidating dark-wood door with a series of carvings depicting monsters I’d never seen before, Calliope rounded on us and gave me a serious look.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Do I ever?”

“I’m serious, Secret. Do you know how to kill a demon?”

I stared at the sword in my hand. “Umm…no.”

Calliope reached for my katana, but the moment she touched it the sword emitted a piercing hiss. That was new. She withdrew her hand and glared at the Japanese weapon like it had insulted her. She grumbled something at it in a fae language, and the noise dulled.

“Where did you get that?” she asked me.

“Koreatown.”

“Hmm.” This time she turned to Desmond and held out a hand for his broadsword, which he gave her without question. The medieval blade didn’t respond to her touch in any way. I stared at my own sword again and marveled at what it had done. It had reacted similarly to the white-haired fae and the ogre. Was this what the fae shopkeeper was talking about when he told me about the katana’s darkness? Calliope cleared her throat to get my attention back. “There are two ways to kill a demon. Destroy the heart.” She mimed stabbing Desmond in the chest with the blade, and he and I both winced. “Or decapitation.”

“Oh, good old decapitation,” I said dreamily.

“But with either method, you must destroy the object completely. If you merely stab a demon in the chest, you will not kill it. If you cut off its head but leave the body and head together, it will regenerate. It would be easier to send it back from whence it came, but you need the demon’s true name for that.”

“I tried. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming when we played the name game.”

Calliope put a hand on each of my shoulders and pulled me close for a hug. With her lips next to my ear, she whispered, “One day you will die standing by someone you love, Secret. Today is not that day.” When she withdrew she gave me a meaningful look and squeezed my right hand in spite of the sword I held. The hand with the longer lifeline. She gave one last nod like she knew something she wasn’t telling me. Considering she was an immortal seer of the future, I was pretty sure she was holding something big as her ace in the hole.

“I thought you said my future was uncertain.”