“I’ve told you. I believe this is your chance to shine.”
My eyes narrowed. I wanted so badly to believe that. His kind words and praise; that I was someone to seriously consider, not just an impulsive and powerless Lower Demon. I should have known better; Dermot Dirk was not a kindly man. He was not a father figure to dole out advice and encouragement.
“Bullshit,” I said through gritted teeth.
Dirk exhaled. His face flushed red. “Fine.” His tone mirrored mine. “A few months ago, someone contacted me claiming to be Warren Davenport. He said that he needed someone to help broker a deal with an Ifrit.”
“And you helped?” I scoffed. “From the kindness of your Winter Fae heart?”
“I owed Davenport a favor.” He said, his teeth grinding.
“You didn’t check if this man was actually Davenport?” I laughed harshly. “You just, what? Attached a PDF of the correct ritual to summon an Ifrit?”
He did not look me in the eye.
“You didn't?” My anger gave way to disbelief. My eyes widened until they were in danger of popping out of my skull.
“I couldn't send a true Mimic Sidhe. They wouldn’t be able to deal with a Demon.” He continued as if I hadn’t spoken.
“You could have told me all this from the beginning.” I pointed out.
“Mara.” Dirk chided with a chuckle. “Please. You have the censorship capabilities of a four-year-old.”
I rubbed my eyelids with the pads of my fingers before resting my hand on my lips. I tasted the blood from the tiny crescent wounds my fingernails had left behind.
“The true Warren Davenport visited shortly after Team C was murdered. He asked for my assistance.” Dirk admitted. “It did not take long to realize that someone had, indeed, summoned an Ifrit.”
“But you didn’t tell Warren your part in it?” I closed my eyes and counted to ten.
“I offered my assistance. I also alluded to the fact that one of his Hunters must have been behind the attack.” Dermot Dirk cleared his throat. He looked contrite. “I offered your services. Confident that you would find the Ifrit and free it.”
I thought about the bastardized markings I had seen in Hugo's mind. The numerous languages layering over each other. I had not recognized many of the words because they belonged to the Fae Lords. A language that predated Cyclian and the language of Hell.
“I can't do this.” My voice hitched. “I want to go home.”
“To a world without taste, smell, touch?” Dirk asked bitterly. “I allow you to live.”
I didn’t know how to explain that I felt terrible for deceiving the Hunters.
I knew what guilt felt like—the emotion was a hollow crater in my soul, whenever I thought about my Cluster.
Demons did not side with Hunters. They did not love them.
“Don’t make me do this.” I pleaded. Thinking about Hugo's Soul Bond and his rejection. Remi's fiancée. Davenport's nightmares of a world of flames.
Dermot Dirk's eyes flashed, and his eyes narrowed. “You’ve changed.” He noted without emotion.
I shook my head but said nothing.
He studied Frankie's body with a dispassionate eye. His gaze rested on the blood I had smeared on my lips by accident. He sat up in his chair. “She’s not human,” Dirk stated. With no context, I had no idea what he was talking about.
“No shit, Tinkerbell.”
Dirk gave me the stink eye. “Your host is not human. Perhaps that is the reason the Ifrit could not kill her.”
“Except that there were plenty of non-humans on Team C, and they all died.” I put my hand on my hip.
“Leave the body was a second,” Dirk commanded. “I want to see.”
“She’ll die,” I argued.
Ice began to bloom on my exposed skin, a thin layer of frost. I saw my breath fog in front of my face.
“She won't die.” The Fae's voice had no room for argument.
I slumped my shoulders and poured from Frankie Gardiner's mouth, a thick plume of black smoke. Dermot Dirk stood up and moved around his desk, his thin limbs made the movements jerky and inherently suspicious. He waved a hand as if I was a bad smell, and I drifted to the corner of the room. Resting near the ceiling like a spider in a web.
Without a body, the Human Realities seemed drab to me. Without texture. I eyed Frankie's blue-lipped still form with a sense of possessiveness that I was unused to.
Dirk lifted her hand and turned it over, running his thumb over the newly healed wounds. His look was contemplating.
He did not acknowledge me, but I felt self-conscious of my form regardless. I distracted myself from the emptiness of being without a body and followed Dirk's ministrations as he studied Frankie Gardiner's body.
Neither of us heard the door open.
Warren Davenport had enough of waiting, it seemed. As he stood in the doorway, I realized what he must have seen. Something that could not be explained. A frozen and motionless body and terrifying undulating smoke with tentacles and deep hollow eye sockets. My true form. The wide gaping maw, simulating a human scream. The floating darkness, stretching and reaching.
Davenport's entire body stiffened and went on alert. His muscles bunched, and his nostrils flared. He did not spare my true form another glance, as he looked at Dermot Dirk with contempt.
“Explain,” Davenport demanded.
Dermot Dirk could not lie.
As one of the Fae, he was physically incapable of it, but as he stood there, stock-still, with his mouth gaping open in shock, I would have expected Dirk to at least come up with something.
Davenport's shoulders were squared as he held his ground. His towering presence took up the entire doorway.
I zipped forward, moving as quickly as I was able, as I went for the door. I had one avenue of escape, and I planned to take it.
Davenport reached for my incorporeal form, his eyes glowed the same deep red that the evilest of demons wore on their irises. I knew he couldn’t touch me. I just had to get past him.
I focused on the open door with laser-like precision. My only goal was to escape. My mind layered Davenport with the shadowed figure of the Shayati, as they rose from the cracks in the world to devour my kin. I didn’t want to die.
Warren Davenport's hand connected with my bodiless form, slamming me backward, I hurtled back into Frankie's body. A writhing mass of black worms. Dirk leaped forward, and frost spread across the walls so quickly that it cracked audibly. Dirk's form shimmered, and his true visage showed for a blink. A tall regal Winter Fae, stood behind his desk, instead of the vague and watery-eyed businessman.
The commander of the Hunters gripped Frankie's still body as I dissolved into her pores. I felt my possession turn her eyes to oil slicks—the only physical marker of my presence. Davenport waved a hand, and Dirk slammed back against the wall. The Fae's ice melted as my boss passed out with a line of blood down his face from a nasty looking cut on his forehead.
Warren gripped my wrists and held them in front of my chest, disabling me. My head swam with the sudden, forced, inhabitancy of a body. Taste, smell, and touch roared to the forefront of my thoughts, and my eyes blinked hazily as I struggled not to vomit.
“Who are you?” Davenport shook me. I reared back like a spooked horse and tried to upend myself from Frankie's body. I was stuck tight. Shocked, I gaped at the Hunter as his dark eyes flashed.
“What did you do?” I whispered. His grip on my wrists began to burn with more than just skin-on-skin friction. It felt like his hands were on fire.
I blinked my demonic eyes away as I began to panic. I struggled to pull away, but he held me still.