The Devil's Daughter Complete Box Set, page 67
part #1 of The Devil's Daughter Series
The grand doors of the bank were opened by two more uniformed police officers in full regalia. From the stiffly erect postures and furtive looks in the chief’s direction, it was clear they were in awe of him and nervous about performing the simple duty to someone they revered. The message to Sere was unmistakable; there was no escape.
Her flowing yellow ball gown swept the floor as he guided her over the marble entry and up the half flight of stairs to the main room. No one had searched her after she’d exited the hall of gowns. She found it hard to believe that had simply been an oversight. I’m driving myself crazy with all of these conspiracy theories.
“You look quite lovely.” Gerald leaned toward her, revealing the patent-leather gun holster under his jacket that matched his dress shoes and belt so well that it could have been sold as a suit accessory.
By contrast, Sere felt like a tomboy dressed up to look like a Disney princess. “You’ve found a unique way of keeping me from fighting. It’s hard enough just walking in this thing.”
He nodded to another uniformed cop at the reception desk in front of a row of elevators. The man smartly returned the greeting, put a key in a lock, and moved aside. The wall of marble slabs behind the desk parted to reveal an ornate lift that could have been left over from the days when Baron Malveaux ran the bank.
“Your sister is waiting downstairs,” the cop said.
“Of course she is,” Gerald muttered as he ushered Sere into the walnut-paneled elevator. The power play was subtle but unmistakable. After eighty years of coordination, competition, and conspiracies, every word and action between the siblings was calculated to reinforce the dominant party. And for the last twenty years—since the day Gerald had accepted retirement over confrontation—Marjory had held the commanding hand. Sere might be little more than a pawn in their game of power, but if played right, even a pawn could take down a queen.
The elevator doors opened to two more police officers. “I hope you didn’t drain the entire department simply to impress me,” Sere said.
“Marjory likes a nice show. Now, please keep quiet.”
Again, she couldn’t tell if his command was a threat or a warning. I sure as hell hope you’re on my side. Being in the dark meant Sere could believe she at least had a fighting chance at his help.
Marjory swept across the concrete floor in a shimmering black-silk dress. The gown managed to downplay the woman’s age by not showing too much skin while at the same time highlighting the woman’s strength with starkly straight lines. She held out her hand sheathed in a long black glove that extended halfway from her elbow to her shoulder. “At last.”
Gerald made a show of taking her hand and bending slightly to kiss it. “Shall we get on with it?”
Though the floor had been scrubbed clean of the blood and guts Sere had spilled from Marjory’s devil and demons, the concrete pillars still bore the marks of missed sword strikes. Two final guards stood on either side of the table. From their clear eyes, Sere could tell they weren’t demons. If worse comes to worst, I’ll be facing four guards with guns in the basement, Gerald—who’s old but far from infirm, with a gun he’ll be overly confident about—and the version of Devlin that Marjory lets out of the vault. And me without my knife. Even in this stupid dress, those aren’t the worst odds I’ve ever faced.
“You remember our agreement?” Marjory asked as if addressing a schoolboy.
“Of course, my dear sister. If Devlin emerges, as you advertise he will—and if I’m convinced this isn’t all a trick—I’ll dispatch Sere Mal-Laurette. Our nephew will be the only immortal until I undergo the change.”
“And once you do, you’ll perform the same procedure on me,” she said. “Think of it. We’ll shave twenty years off of our ages, and with our regenerative properties, our sixties will feel more like forties. I could live with being in my forties for eternity. You and I will be gods.”
“One step at a time,” he said.
Marjory turned and waved at a bundle wrapped in black plastic and secured to a dolly. “Would you burly gentlemen mind wheeling my nephew into the cabinet?” She had all the showmanship of a tawdry magician.
The guards standing next to the table hopped to it as if the command had come from the chief. In the power play between brother and sister, Marjory might be in control, but when it came to the strongmen she relied on, she still had to trust Gerald. I dare not kill any of these men until I know which side he’s on. To know who to fight, Sere would have to wait until more cards were played between the siblings.
The men lifted the dolly into the iron box then untied the straps and removed the black plastic. Sere only got fleeting glimpses of the rebuilt body. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the sewn-together pieces looked human in shape but lacked the clean, subtle lines of the original form.
“Now, remember,” Marjory said as she stood behind the journal on the table. “Even once Devlin is whole again, it may take him some time to fully heal.”
“Making excuses before you even begin?” Gerald asked.
“Not at all. I just don’t want you to think this is how you’ll look after your transformation.” For the first time since they’d entered the basement, Marjory turned to Sere. “You did quite a number on Devlin. I should let him kill you, but I’ll find it far more satisfying to see my brother pull the trigger.” She grabbed her handbag then pulled out a silver revolver. “Of course, if he chickens out or you make a run for it, I brought a backup.”
No doubt, with the original bullets from Andy, Sere thought. If Marjory’s were filled with hell-based rubble, that would mean the little twerp wasn’t the one giving Sere a chance. The question then would be whether the impotent bullets in Gerald’s gun were some sort of a test set by Marjory or, conversely, a giant brotherly fuck you by Gerald in letting Sere live. Whatever the answer, Sere would have to get closer than she’d like to find out.
Marjory checked the elegant gold pocket watch on the table. “Close the door.” She then clicked the more modern stopwatch.
60
Chapter 12
Sere didn’t need to see the watch to know that hell and life were lining up like the earth and moon during a solar eclipse. Hell’s energy tingled her skin like static electricity just prior to having the bejesus zapped out of her. The opening of the hell mouth had been enjoyable while she was naked in Bart’s arms and invigorating while she was battling killer crawfish with him at her side. In her enemy’s lair and on her own, however, the energy rush from the impending hour of demonic fury might prove hard to control. To carry out her deception of Marjory, Sere needed to keep her cool—at least until she had her hands on Devlin.
Regarding what was happening directly in front of her, she knew what to expect. Somewhere in the professor’s hell-based equipment, whatever passed for Devlin Laroque’s soul lay dormant. His doppelgänger’s spirit—which Marjory would assume was located in an adjacent part of the program—would be bound tightly to the pellet Bart had fired into the mangled body. Without Andy at the controls in hell, Marjory wouldn’t know that part of her experiment was misaligned. The vault was an interdimensional portal between life and hell. By closing its door, she would activate the souls of the damned that her demons had captured. That power cord served to unite Devlin’s soul in hell with his reproduced body that Marjory and her scientist goons had hammered back together. How his demonic double—already locked in the body—took to the process, however, was anyone’s guess. Once the two were combined into one, the new devil would utilize the same bridge of the damned to power up his doppelgänger body. Then Devlin would be free of the professor’s equipment, free to determine his body’s age, free to regenerate as he chose, and free to terrorize the living until someone found a way of putting him down.
If Sere was clever, she might get to take one shot. Her body’s demand for action made it hard to think clearly. While Marjory busied herself with the baron’s journal writings on how to raise an immortal, Sere checked that her elegant white gloves were stretched high up her arms. Thin wires were looped under her armpits and down the sides of her corset and attached to the cellphone strapped against her leg. Making the call too soon risked alerting Devlin to the threat. So long as the billowy fabric didn’t inadvertently brush against the phone’s screen, all she’d have to do was rest her hand against her dress to establish the connection when the time was right. She just had to get close enough to Devlin to make contact before someone decided to shoot her, sneak the pellet through his flesh without him screaming like a banshee, and get past the guards and out of Marjory’s basement lair while still hanging onto the pellet in her paranormally powered gloved fist. Simple enough.
The truth was, she needed help, and it was out there. This time, though, her support group was going to have to find her. Kendell might have had a point about keeping her and the team in the loop if I expect them to show up in a crisis. I just hope she’s got more of those spirit jars handy.
The sound of the creaky iron door opening like the hatch of a rusty battleship refocused Sere’s attention on the devil who was about to be revealed. As if hit by a gust of wind-driven dust straight out of hell, everything in front of her eyes went blood red.
A man stumbled out of the vault, wearing an ill-fitting, backless hospital gown. As he tried walking, Sere realized the garment’s issue stemmed from its occupant’s misaligned limbs. Devlin Laroque might have had his bits and pieces stuck back together, but he was far from whole.
“Welcome back.” Marjory held her arms out toward him like he was a kindergartener returning home from his first day of school.
“I don’t feel right,” the creature moaned.
Marjory put her arm around his waist to help steady him. “Focus. If that girl over there can regenerate, you can too.”
Gerald continued to stand ramrod straight, watching the action. “I hope your little play gets better, sister, because I’m not spending eternity hobbling across the floor, looking like I’m mentally challenged.”
“You need to just give him a minute,” she snapped. “If he’d stepped out of the vault fully manifested, you’d have complained that you hadn’t witnessed his powers of regeneration.” She took hold of Devlin’s arm and pulled it out straight. The ligaments, muscles, and joints fell into line, but the moment Marjory let go of the limb, it dropped, lifeless and mangled, at the man’s side.
She turned on Sere. “Show him how to heal.”
Fuck you, Sere thought, even as she realized that Marjory was offering an opening for her to make physical contact with Devlin. If she appeared too willing, the woman would know something was up, so she played up her belligerence. “Why should I? You’re planning on killing me the moment he’s whole.”
“Prove that you have worth to me, and I won’t kill you.”
Even in her demonically powered brain, Sere appreciated the practicality of the offer. It sure beat Devlin’s original argument of the two of them ruling the world together. “So my options are help you raise an army of immortals or face my own death? I may only partially understand what it is to be human, but even I’ve got enough of a moral compass to not side with the devil against all of humanity.” She hoped she hadn’t overplayed her hand. She did still need to get close to Devlin to shut him off.
Marjory leaned Devlin against the table as if she were getting down to serious negotiations. “What if I help you give immortality to those you love? I won’t bullshit you by saying our two sides could live in harmony, but having your own army that could balance mine must beat leaving the future of humanity solely in my hands.”
Sere had seen her father negotiate enough deals to know nothing was ever as it seemed. She only needed to get close to Devlin—nothing else mattered. However, Marjory would know something was up if Sere didn’t aggressively play the game. “A one-to-one detente? For each immortal you create, I get to build one of my own?”
“So long as you help me solidify each new immortal. I need your knowledge, and you need my magic vault.”
Sere ran her hands along her legs as if drying her palms. In reality, she was activating her phone. “I have to touch him, and it might not be pleasant. Regeneration can be very disorienting. Also, I can only fix what was originally whole, so there aren’t any promises this will work.”
Marjory shrugged and tapped her gun. “If it doesn’t, we’ll be back to our original plan of me killing you.”
Gerald stepped forward half a stride. “I thought I was supposed to do the honors.”
Marjory took her hand away from her revolver. “So you are.”
Sere walked in front of Devlin and next to the journal. She had an undeniable urge to grab the book and run. Without it, not only would Marjory be thwarted in her attempts at raising a devil, but the world itself might be spared the instructions as well.
One thing at a time, she thought as she faced Devlin. “You’re going to get very woozy. It can be wildly disorienting seeing yourself as multiple people. Don’t be alarmed if you feel intense pain and slump to the ground. Hyperconsciousness can be as difficult on the body as unconsciousness.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Gerald pulling out his gun. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “Hurt him, make a run for it, or start a fight, and I’ll have to put a bullet in you.”
Behind Devlin, Marjory smiled. “She’s got too much invested to turn away now. That handsome bartender, the ragtag group who raised her, and an open-ended number of others she could make permanent additions to her life—who could say no to that? Especially since she knows that no matter what happens today, I’ll never stop. The only way she can combat me is to follow through with her promise.” She sauntered past Devlin to Sere. “Isn’t that right, my dear?”
Sere didn’t know how to lie, and she suspected somewhere in her father’s journals, Baron Malveaux had explained that character trait. “It would be the most logical choice.”
“Close enough,” Marjory said. “Now, show Devlin what to do.”
The man held out his arms like a little kid expecting to be picked up after scraping his knees on the playground. Weak and pathetic, Sere thought. Marjory should have chosen her potential immortal with more care.
She took him in her arms. Between the physical contact, the hell-based energy infusion from midnight’s opening of the hell mouth, and the professor’s enhanced connection to Jennifer, Sere saw Devlin from his own perspective. The two sides of his soul were like the two handles of a jump rope being held by the mangled remains of his doppelgänger body. His form had the finesse of Frankenstein’s monster, and she was supposed to teach the creature how to use the equipment like a skilled athlete. The energy cord made up of lost souls made Sere nearly lose her footing.
“I’m going to save you.”
Devlin nestled against her. She knew he thought she was talking to him. Standing in the center of the nineteen souls of the damned who held hands and made up the looped line into hell were Larry and Kelly. The couple, who had shown such kindness to Sere when she was on the run, had been the first people to fall prey to a demon from hell. Standing outside of the group like a protective coating were the demons who’d used the damned to make their escape and return to the foreign dimension. With them was Doodlebug, who kept her head down. Her presence let Sere know she had at least one demonic ally in her quest to end Devlin.
“Get to work,” the doppelassassin whispered.
Sere refocused on the task at hand. Devlin was composed of two energies, the real and the doppelgänger demon. As she’d hoped, the side from hell hadn’t matched up with the soul yanked from hell’s computer. But before she began her operation, she needed to focus on the energy pulsing through her hand.
Jennifer eased out of bed without disturbing Henry, who was snoring softly. “What are we doing now?” she whispered as she grabbed a robe.
“It’s way too complicated to explain. Find a quiet place and wait for me. If we lose touch, head to the professor’s lab right away.”
Jennifer tiptoed down the carpeted hallway toward the kitchen. “Sounds dangerous.”
“You have no idea. I’m going to snatch this demon and make a run for it. When I do, he’ll be able to hear everything we’re saying, so don’t talk. There will be a whole gauntlet of people trying to shoot me. Try to stay calm.”
“Where are you?” Jennifer asked. “I’ll send help.”
Usually, Sere liked conducting her battles free of other entanglements, but this one promised to tax her skills. And the ramifications of failure extended well beyond her own existence. “I’m at the bank. Tell Kendell to bring a spirit jar and Bart to bring a traditional medical field kit. Even if things go well, I expect to get shot at least once. Tell them to watch themselves. You’ve got about a minute before I yank the pellet out of this guy.” Sere turned her attention to the demonic side of Devlin. All right, fucker, time to dance.
“What do I do first,” Devlin asked.
“See yourself. You’re a grown man, so I expect you have a healthy sense of self-awareness. Before you can call on the new part of you for healing, you need to differentiate the injured self from the power source.” Of course, for Sere, that was considerably easier with Jennifer being a distinctly separate soul.
“Will you be inside me too?”
She pressed her palm against his back near his heart as if pressing a start button. “Not completely. I’ll be like a ghost trying to focus your energy. This is up to you, though. You’ve got a lot to do to heal this body. It will be unpleasant. Try not to cry out.” If she could keep him quiet during the pellet extraction, hopefully, Marjory would keep her distance.
“I can see him.” Devlin’s voice had the soft, far-off tone of someone slipping into a trance.
“Good. You need to start with a little separation between you.” Sere couldn’t afford to yank both demon and real out of the body and have the doppelgänger puppet disintegrate. The person Devlin used to be needed to survive for a time to hold the body together. To convince Marjory that resurrection wasn’t possible, Sere had to allow the plan to at least partially succeed. Plus, if Devlin fell to dust in Sere’s hands, she’d be to blame. While she made her escape, his energy would drain like an overused battery while Marjory scrambled to hold him together.
