Dark Around the Edges Chapter Two

Devon naturally had the kind of constitution that recovered rapidly from damage. By the time he was dragged into a private room beyond the madding crowd, carried right through the horde of muttering old men, all of whom stank of rich cologne and sour, secretive lust, the numbness was gone and he was back to feeling pretty much himself again. He let Numbers One and Two keep dragging him though, because it always paid to be underestimated, and besides, why should he make things easy on them?

The room he was pulled into was…strange. It was very well-ventilated, for one, with none of the cloying incense in the air. There was only one chair in it, an immense throne carved from what looked like a solid piece of marble. There was a large silver circle inlaid with the Seal of Solomon on the floor in front of the throne, and that was where Devon was tossed.

He rolled to his hands and knees and looked the circle over as he tried to catch his breath. It was very professional work, and infused with enough power that if he were a true demon he’d have been trapped already, even without the incantation to raise the ward. So, demon summoning, he could check that off the list of perversions that the Pearly Gates had to offer. It explained how they had known what Devon was. The situation had just deteriorated from “shit” to “serious fucking shit, I’m not kidding you, I think my balls just tried to jump into my throat.”

Still, it was a little too early to be panicking. Devon loudly cleared his throat twice, and Maria’s sigh of relief came through loud and clear. That signal meant he wasn’t in eminent danger, and she didn’t have to worry about sending the posse in quite yet.

In Devon’s opinion, there was nothing like a good posse, but that was a big and often explosive step. If there was an alternative to letting things get that far, he knew he had to pursue it.

A small man in a pure white robe sat on a thick silk cushion covering the seat of the throne. He wore a tall pontiff-style hat that looked oddly officious and had a neat, greying beard that fell down to his lap. His eyes were dark and calculating, and he smelled musty, like old wine and rotting wood. He had a brown stone hanging from his neck as well, and now Devon kind of wanted to kick himself for not figuring those trinkets out earlier. “You must be Saint Peter.”

“The lord of the Pearly Gates,” the man said in perfect English, nodding his head slightly. “And you are not Jacob Klein, despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s a most impressive cover identity, though. My girls couldn’t find anything wrong with it when they looked into permitting your supplication.”

“I thought it was an application,” Devon interjected.

“You must know better than that,” Saint Peter tutted. “No one can apply to get into heaven. They can only entreat me, their lord, to grant them access to delights beyond the mundane world, and if I look favorably upon them, then...” He smiled slightly. “Then their lives become enriched beyond measure. And creatures like you are the means of that enrichment. Did you truly think to hide your nature in a place like this?” He chuckled. “When we are already so knowledgeable about you? It was folly. I know what you are, demon child. Cammmbion.” Saint Peter drew out the word like it was something to be savored.

“How did you know?” Devon had a pretty good idea, but he wanted it confirmed.

“My little charms.” The old man tapped the stone around his neck. “Peach pits, with a symbol carved on the back that renders the bearers nearly immune to your influence. All of my floor staff wear them. They grow warm when in the presence of an unshielded cambion or demon. They are expensive to manufacture, but well worth the price. After all, my people aren’t here to play. They are busy little angels, obedient and constant in their devotion to none but me.”

Damn, but this guy had an ego. Devon straightened the cuffs of his suit, then splayed his hands out at his sides, putting himself on display. “Well, now that you have me, what do you plan to do with me?”

“That’s a very fine question,” Saint Peter said bemusedly. “Were my time solely my own, I would stretch your beautiful body out on an iron rack and devote myself to studying every last inch of it, inside and out.” His fingers twitched, as though they were already crawling over Devon’s skin. “There are differences, you know, in the anatomy of a human and a cambion. I’ve made quite a study of it over the years. I could tell the two species apart solely from the differences in the taste of their livers.”

Wow, vivisection and cannibalism. Some people just had to be overachievers. Devon tamped down on his nerves and gave his captor a breezy grin. “But you’ve got all these guests, huh?”

“Very true,” Saint Peter agreed. “So I’m afraid I’ll have to restrict myself to squeezing your identity from you before we use you as tonight’s entertainment. You are,” he mused, looking at Devon appreciatively, “very beautiful, even for your kind. Almost as beautiful as one of your forebears. Usually I summon a succubus for the crowd to gawk at, but I think that you will prove an interesting break from tradition.”

“It won’t work the same,” Devon pointed out quickly, barely keeping himself from sending the signal to Maria for the posse to come roaring in, stat . He could handle himself a little longer. “You can’t command a cambion the way you can a pure demon.”

“Ah, but a pure demon doesn’t bleed,” Saint Peter said, drawing his hands together in a professorial clasp. “And there are a number of sadists in my audience chamber who are perennially disappointed by that. While I can’t turn all your joints backwards or force your spine out through your stomach without killing you—” Devon unexpectedly felt a surprising surge of sympathy for whatever demons had ended up here “—you’ll stay alive through much more torment than a regular human being, and the colors will be spectacular.

“So now,” he continued briskly, “let us proceed as friends. The more easily you tell me your true identity, the easier I shall go with you when it comes time for you to perform, in approximately half an hour.”

Fuck. Devon’s lips thinned into a flat line, and he was just a few seconds away from giving the signal for rescue despite the fact that he hadn’t accomplished any of the mission’s objectives yet. Getting tortured wasn’t part of the deal, and while he could take it, at least for a while, his bosses had been very clear on their opinion of futile heroics.

A faint click sounded as a door opened nearby, and suddenly Devon felt quite a bit brighter about the situation, because here, in the flesh, was the very man he’d been sent into the Pearly Gates to find. Porter Grey was an unusually gifted demon summoner, also the former leader of a cult in California that had created over a dozen cambion before the police got involved. He was wanted by mundane authorities for human trafficking, rape, assault, kidnapping, fraud, and murder. Devon’s employers wanted him for a whole lot more.

Porter Grey was classically handsome, with dark, slicked back hair and a dove grey suit tailored to show his broad shoulders and long legs to the best result. His chin was cleft and his eyelids were heavy, almost lazy. He looked languorous and dangerous, like a lion lounging just beyond reach, tempting you to pet it and promising pain if you did. He smelled like an alpha male to Devon, but he still bowed to Saint Peter.

“I didn’t call for you, magician,” Saint Peter said dismissively.

“I was in the security booth when I caught sight of you and the cambion, my lord.” Porter’s voice was urbane, compelling—the sort of voice that implied trustworthiness.

“And why is this adequate reason for interrupting me?”

“Only because I’ve already summoned a demon for tonight’s entertainment, my lord. It wouldn’t do for the effort to go to waste. She’s in the holding cell, waiting to be brought out for your guests.”

Saint Peter looked a little put out. “You already have her manacled and collared?” Silver manacles with the right inscriptions would let a summoner move their demon from place to place without worrying that they would escape, but manacles like that were devilishly hard to make and maintain. Devon raised Porter Grey’s threat level in his mind.

“Yes, my lord. I was merely keeping to the schedule that you yourself have set.”

Saint Peter waved a hand. “I know, I know. Hmm…how long can you hold her?”

“No more than two hours, my lord.” Porter sounded apologetic, but his eyes were cold. Very few people had the innate power needed to summon a demon, and for someone like Porter Grey, so long the master of his own domain, it must have been galling to be at the beck and call of someone else now.

Then again, the man had been missing for close to a decade. Devon’s bosses had lost track of him after he’d arrived in Taiwan, and no one had been more surprised than they to see surveillance footage of Porter back in the States, probably the least safe place in all the world for him to be. They weren’t even positive it was him, which was why Devon had been sent in to reconnoiter.

Well, objective number one was complete. Number two…that was gonna take a bit more work. Apprehending Porter really wasn’t in the cards while Devon was hemmed in by a couple of very angry, still-bleeding thugs.

“I see,” Saint Peter said. He sighed a little, but finally assented. “This young man will keep. I will discuss his future further with him after tonight’s entertainment. It is better, in a way. Now I will be able to take my time with him. Take him to the cell and ready the succubus for presentation.”

Devon and Porter Grey stared at each other for a long moment. For a second, Devon thought that the man was going to be stupid, that he was going to get close enough for Devon to get his hands on him, which would’ve been like Christmas in July at this point. Then Porter smirked, reached inside his jacket and pulled out his own Taser. All Devon had time for was a brief moment of, Oh, fuck me before the barbs made two neat holes in his favorite goddamn Kiton shirt and the electricity filled his body and momentarily blanked out his mind.

Numbers One and Two picked him up and carried him behind Porter through a side door, well away from the revelry of the audience chamber and straight to the holding cells. Porter paused at a closed door and spoke into a small com set into his watch. “Take her into the secondary room.” He glanced over at Devon. “I don’t want them to have any contact.”

Good call , Devon thought hazily. Cambion couldn’t be magically commanded by humans, but their sensitivity to their demon side was much stronger, and much harder to resist. A succubus levering all of her sexuality at him, all of her pure, uninhibited lust, would be able to get him to do just about anything, even dampened as she was by the silver restraints. Porter Grey knew his business. Devon stared blearily at the side of his target’s head, noticing for the first time the furrowed scarring at the top of his ear. Something had taken a chunk out of it at some point, and while the surgeon who fixed it was good, nothing could quite replace that much lost cartilage.

After a few more seconds, Porter opened the door and motioned them through, and Devon felt his stomach turn at the smell that the succubus had left behind. The air was redolent with it, fear and anger and hysterical need, and he whined high in his throat, a faint protest as One and Two shoved him into the empty cell and locked the door behind him. The insides of the cell’s bars were lined with silver, and there was another seal in silver on the floor as well. The silver would cause physical pain to a true demon, but it wasn’t enough to bother Devon. He pushed his sore body into a sitting position and lifted his head. Porter was still there, and looked down at him… hungrily , was the description that immediately came to mind. Like Devon was something to be devoured. Porter dismissed the guards, and once they were gone he moved in closer, his gaze fixed unblinkingly on Devon.

“You’re not one of mine,” Porter said softly, one elegant hand lingering on the metal frame of the cell. “But there’s something very familiar about you.” His voice was considering, but his face was oddly smug.

Devon didn’t know exactly what to make of that, but he did know an opening when he saw one. “You could find out,” he murmured, shifting to his knees. He kept his eyes low, barely glancing up through his long lashes. “If you wanted to. Right now.” He wet his lips with his tongue. “And you wouldn’t have to share me with Saint Peter.”

Porter was wearing a peach charm, so he was resistant to the power of a cambion’s allure but he wasn’t immune to Devon, who had been making people want him in one way or another for as long as he could remember. Demons were sexual but not subtle, while Devon…he could do coy, and that seemed to be something this man wanted. Porter was obviously stifled here, Devon was new and interesting, and if he could just get his hands on the man and rip away that charm…oh, the things Devon could make him do.

Too late, though. Porter was pressed for time, and his sense of responsibility got the better of his curiosity. “I’ll learn the way of you soon enough,” Porter said, and his voice was full of dark promise. He left, exiting through a second metal door about ten feet away, and finally Devon was alone. There was nothing else there back there but a security camera in the corner of the ceiling outside the cell, blinking its little red light at him.

Well then. Good time to talk to his handler. “Maria?” Devon murmured.

“Status report, Harper.”

“Mission is partially accomplished. Porter Grey is definitely here,” Devon said, facing away from the camera and stretching languorously. “He just locked me up, actually.”

“Can you escape?”

“I probably can ,” he said judiciously, “given enough time to work my mojo, but I don’t know exactly when they’re going to be back for me, and I’d rather not be round two of tonight’s entertainment if it was all the same to you.”

“Time for an extraction, then.”

“Oh, do I get Rio?” Devon asked excitedly. Just the thought of it made his heart beat a little faster. “Please tell me I get Rio.” He hadn’t seen Rio in a few months, not since the job they’d done together in Florida, and while the sight of that man in alternating white linen suits and speedos was wonderful fodder for fantasies, over time the memory had grown a bit threadbare. Rio was the only one Devon didn’t have to be careful around, and he treasured every chance he got to work with him. This op had come together so fast that there hadn’t been time to nail down who would be his backup before he went in, and while the other guys were fine, no one compared to Rio. “Please, please, pretty please…”

Maria coughed uncomfortably. “ Reel it in some, Harper.”

Devon grinned unapologetically. “Oh, am I getting you wet, sweetheart?”

“You’re about to get yourself the next job in Siberia if you don’t stop fucking around with me, boy.” Her sigh was long-suffering. “ But yes, you get Rio.”

“Sweet.” Devon bounced up and down on the balls of his feet a little, as close as he felt he could get to a leap and a yell of joy right now. “So I’ll just sit back and relax until I hear the explosions start, shall I?”

“ETA is approximately half an hour. Think you can last until then?”

Porter had a hold on the succubus for the next two hours, and Saint Peter didn’t seem like the type of psycho to let any time he could spend hurting someone go to waste. Devon glanced up at the camera and wondered if the person watching this feed wore the same charm that the floor staff did. “I think I can keep myself alive and in one piece until he gets here.”

“Do that, Harper.”

The com went silent. Devon sauntered over to the cell door and rested his arms against one of the horizontal bars. He stared straight up at the camera, blew a kiss to the watcher, and started to work his allure. If he was lucky, he could have this door open by the time Rio arrived.