Red Moon Demon (Demon Lord) Page 2

  I turned to the leopard. “Okay, Leona, stay hidden and don’t eat any one … if you can help it.”

  “Yeah, I know; but you should remember that there’s a whole lot I can’t help.”

  “Just don’t get blood on my car.”

  I left the car and went over to the double glass doors. Inside, were white marble floors, art deco chandeliers, and walls painted a soft shade of sage. An oversized redwood receptionist desk blocked my way. I’d have to move right or left to reach the elevators, or the wide staircase that circled up to a second floor restaurant.

  Looking like linebackers, two men in dark suits were lined up on each side of the desk, and one stood behind. Two more were at the elevators, making seven. Bulging coats showed they were packing large weapons.

  While I got the lay of the land, Leona padded up to my side. None of the men saw her or reacted to her voice, “They’re carrying demon slaying weapons, protective charms. Nice.” She didn’t say the word like she meant it.

  The man standing directly behind the desk nodded. “Mr. Deathwalker … is it? You’re expected. Come this way.”

  The linebackers let me pass, and their boss walked me to the elevator. The call button was lit. The elevator was coming. The cage opened and I went in with Leona. We were allowed to ride up alone, but they had a camera on us. Barely moving my mouth I said, “I thought you were going to wait in the car.”

  “Not enough people around to keep me entertained. Besides, I don’t want to be the one to tell Old Man why you have seven new demon slaying weapons.”

  “And you figure there will be more bloodshed wherever I’m going.”

  “Yeah, that too. Waste not, want not.”

  At least the music in the elevator was Japanese classic and not some shitty, overplayed advertising jingle. The doors opened on a penthouse foyer. Four more guards with demon slaying weapons greeted us. This time, the weapons were out in plain sight. The guards parted to give access. I went through the penthouse door, Leona pressing against my leg. One of the men followed me into a sprawling living room with cathedral ceilings. On a couch in front of the fire place, Old Man sat with a tiny cup of steaming sake, talking to a Japanese man with a high forehead and white hair on the back and sides. His face was lined, and grown lax with age.

  Seeing me with the guard, the Japanese man beckoned. The guard turned and left me instead of trying to throw me out—which would have been really fun. It was hard to remember that I was here to protect these people from what the guards couldn’t handle.

  I strolled through a light crowd, drawing curious glances from everyone. I paid more attention to the layout, looking for weak spots. The carpet was soft red which was good if I needed to do something messy like a blood spell. One side wall was all glass. The room had too many openings, but solid wood tables laden with food could quickly be overturned and used for cover. There was a staircase to the left that went up to loft. That was a problem if someone took to the high ground with hostages. Double doors beyond the stairs were heavy, probably opened to an outside terrace.

  I reached the fireplace and stopped in a casual slouch, hands in pockets. I nodded. “Hey, Old Man, you’re here too?”

  “Yes, I wanted to make sure Hiro knew, even though you may not have been born to our clan, that you are our best.” Old Man never took his eyes off the leaping flames. I wondered at his fascination seeing as water was his true element.

  Calling him by first name, not standing or even making eye contact while talking; these two have known each other for a long time.

  I nodded to our client. “Hello, Mr. Kirishima, I am Caine Deathwalker, and I’ll be saving your family’s collective ass.”

  I felt annoyance radiating off them like the heat from the fire. I grinned to show how little he cared, and took a chair next to Old Man. Caine said, “So, what are we dealing with and what have you done to get it pissed at you?”

  Mr. Hiro rose from his chair and stepped away from the fire place to face both Old Man and me.

  “The vile beast is what you westerners call a succubus. As for how this came to be a problem, my grandfather contracted that she would make all other rival companies fail gloriously when competing against us. In return, she could take one of his grandchildren. He thought it a great deal.” Hands shoved in the pockets of his dark blue three-piece suit, Hiro sounded angry.

  “So, she wants your precious daughter and now you’re going back on your grandfather’s word.”

  He unpocketed a hand to loosen the perfect knot of his tie. “I’d had no say bout the deal, only finding out when it was too late. I run the clan now. I will run it my way. I prefer to give you my gold instead of handing my only child over to that creature. She wants to make my girl into a succubus as well. That is a shame I could never bear.”

  I pretended to be undecided. “You’re still breaking a contract. I don’t know if I want to be part of that.”

  Old Man was getting angry, but hiding it well. He looked at me with incandescent eyes and said, “You can have seventy-five percent, and no more.

  Old Man knew he’d raised me like a demon; there was no reason not to push for even more. After all, it’s greed that makes hell go round.

  “Ha, Old Man you’re trying to make a deal with a deal breaker? You know a succubus with a valid contract is going to be a hell of a lot of trouble.”

  Hiro took a step over to me. He leaned in close, as if we alone were talking. He said, “If you keep my immediate family alive, I will give you my family’s sword.”

  “I have a sword.”

  Hiro locked eyes with Old Man, and then spoke to me, “It is Muramasa’s last and greatest forging. All his other swords are trash before it.”

  In the 1600’s, Japanese sword smith Muramasa created the greatest swords of his day, but he was ill-tempered and unbalanced. His insanity seeped into his blades, giving them life and a thirst for blood and war. According to legend, once drawn, a Muramasa blade has to draw blood before it can be returned to its scabbard—if not, the cursed blade causes its owner to wound or even kill himself. Such a blade could well shatter the one I owned. I felt myself getting hard at the thought of holding it.

  “Okay, you got a deal. Now, show me the girl.”

  THREE

  “Hi, I can see your panties.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  Hiro waved at the loft, “Haruka, Jessie, come down here, please.”

  I used the opportunity to grab a small bottle of hot sake from the small table beside Hiro’s leather wingchair.

  Old Man gave me a glare that failed to induce contrition.

  Maybe next time.

  I took a sip and moved away from the fireplace.

  There were family members, servants, and security milling around, pretending this was a social gathering. That illusion broke as the space in front of me cleared, and two high school girls from the loft reached the bottom landing. Faces composed, dark eyes glittering, hair fanning like raven’s wings; they came toward me on the way to Hiro. The girl in front would be the heir. She wore a cherry blossom print kimono, a real beauty, porcelain skin, high cheeky bones, pale pink lipstick the color of cherry blossoms. No one would ever call her cute—only amazing—I knew this much despite the damn kimono hiding her best features.

  The second girl was white European, and taller, five-seven, wearing a woman’s business suit. I made an automatic calculation; five-seven, twenty-two waist, thirty-two hips, and thirty-four C tits. Her ass-long hair had been dyed a soft brown and streaked with vibrant red tones. It looked like she wore colored contact lenses. Her eyes were gem-like, cobalt blue. Her bright red lipstick made me want to lick her lips for her. Her beauty was more earthly; cute with a side of come-fuck-me.

  I downed the bottle while they passed me, and I noticed every man in the room targeting the girls, facing them like sunflowers moving with the sun.

  I heard the distinctive slither of steel blades, leaving their sheathes in the foyer. The main doors opened a
nd the guards staggered in, weapons in hand. Their eyes were empty, their faces slack. Facing their demon-slaying weapons, I felt my own magic stir in resonation, as if cascading feathers were lightly brushing my skin, leaving a warm tingle. I cross-pulled my twin PPK nines.

  They were already cocked, so I only needed to thumb off the safeties. I called out to all those not under the mind-bending influence, “If you don’t want to die, get your collective asses outta here.” I shot twice, hitting two of the advancing guards between the eyes. “Old Man, get the girls and Hiro out on the balcony.”

  Female screams sliced the air. The women scattered, ducking behind furniture, hurrying toward the stairs to the loft, and breaking for the balcony where we were heading. Old Man put his arm around Hiro, making him look like a confused child, and hurried him around the free-standing fireplace to the French doors. Haruka followed, her friend stayed a step behind.

  I targeted the leading edge of attackers, squeezing off carefully accurate shots. Red dots appeared between their eyes. The exit wounds in back of their heads were quite a bit messier. With scrambled brains, the puppet strings were cut. The bodies collapsed and did not rise again.

  Male relatives that were inside the room when the attack began were now lurching at me, taking the place of those down. And they had less distance to cover. There were even bodies launching themselves from the upper loft, with no thought of the damage they were acquiring.

  “Leona, a little help,” I suggested.

  She hit the closest group of men, ripping them apart with slashing claws, and bites that removed entire faces, whirling from one enemy to another in a constant, smooth play of feline muscle.

  Elsewhere, one of the last mind-controlled guards advanced with his demon-slayer blade raised above his head. I shot out an eye. The sword fell to the carpet beside its wielder. Another enemy snagged it, slashing. Scampering aside, Leona barely avoided damage.

  “Go to Old Man,” I told her. I retreated as well, dragging a loveseat along to wedge in a French door. A body dropped near me and collapsed a small wood table. On his belly, the puppet clawed at me, flailing slowly at my ankles. I pulled the couch over him and kept retreating. Seeing what I was doing, some of the women united their efforts to copy me, blocking other balcony doors as best they could.

  A guard with a crossbow aimed. His bolt sped through the air, as I shifted my hips. The bolt glanced off one of my shoulder holsters, deflected into a lamp that shattered. The weapon’s design allowed a second bolt to be fired before reloading. That bolt zipped over my shoulder and broke a pane in the French doors. A small scream from outside told me it had hit somebody.

  I emptied my clips, taking less care where my shots went, and then I was outside, holstering my weapons. I wedged my loveseat as best I could while the guard with the crossbow reloaded.

  As the puppets reached the barricades, they clawed at hem. I took the opportunity to race away; joining those huddled across the rooftop garden. There was a fire escape. Many of the guests were stomping down the steel stairs, headed for the street. Old Man yelled down at them, “Don’t stop for anything.”

  I looked back at the barricades. They were being pulled clear. We were running out of time.

  The guard with the crossbow stepped out on the expansive balcony deck. He raised his weapon for another couple shots. The human puppet behind him staggered past, accidentally loping off the man’s head, one small favor to be grateful for. A wild shot went up into the air.

  I changed clips in my weapons as a swarm of bodies staggered at me. For some reason, I was everybody’s favorite target.

  A sword came at me. My right gun spat flame and lead slugs. The men made no effort to dodge my withering fire.

  “Wow, you guys suck,” I told them.

  Old Man called out behind me, “Come on, we’re the last.”

  I backed to the edge of the building, firing methodically as I went. My clips emptied and I holstered my guns. “After you,” I said.

  Man looked at me like I was too stupid to live. “I’m an Atlantean demon, remember. Get the hell outta here so I can cut loose.

  Having no wish to be part of that, I vaulted the wall and landed on an iron grate with a drop-down ladder that reached the street. The ladder was clogged with desperate women, Hiro in their midst along with Haruka and Jessie. I saw no sign of Leona—until she faded into view next to me, her yellow eyes flaming bright with excitement.

  I heard chanting, shaped by a voice that was no longer human. A demon spell was being forged, word by word, burning the air’s oxygen into ozone. Had anyone human tried to pronounce such words, his larynx would have shredded and his throat filled with blood. It was one of the reason I used dragon-style magic instead of demon.

  I dropped down on my knees, keeping my head low. Leona nudged in next to me so that if there was any backwash from the roof, I’d take the brunt of it for her. Spirit leopards are often too cleaver for everyone else’s good.

  The sky above turned dark. Purple-white jags of lightning webbed the gathering storm, licking the underbellies of roiling clouds. A sulfur-scented rain fell, mostly on this one building.

  Old Man hollered, “Fire in the hole!”

  Balls of lightning dropped onto the building, the ultimate flash bang grenades. Damp winds screamed obscenities in a thousand demon tongues, spiraling off the roof, tearing at me as they expanded out across the alley to the next building over. At the core of the windstorm, a funnel formed, reaching down from the overhead clouds. A blue-gray funnel detached, inverting in the air so the base was wide and the upper portion a narrow tip, a water-spout looking for a place to kill. This was Old Man’s trademark. Most demons used fire or ice, but not him. His demon magic had been good enough to sink Atlantis; he saw no reason to change just because a few thousand years had passed.

  “We are about to get very wet,” I told Leona, visualizing a flood of water scouring everything out of the penthouse not nailed down.

  “Climb on,” Leona said. “I’ll give you a ride.”

  I shouted over the wind. “There’s a time and place for sex you know?”

  She growled. “A ride down to the street, you idiot!”

  I threw a leg over her back, getting a good grip on her shoulders, as her tail wound around my waist like a seatbelt. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  Instead of answering, she leaped off the fire escape. Silver-blue fire swirled around her paws, giving her traction midair so we didn’t fall as we crossed the alley, ping-ponging off our building and the next over while dropping to the alley pavement. We landed running, but slowed after several steps. As Leona’s tail pulled away, I stepped off her.

  She went invisible and intangible—a useful trick I didn’t have. I could only put my arms over my head and take a deep breath as something resembling a flash flood dumped off the building, fragmenting into a hard rain as it fell. I felt one of my tattoos heat up on my flesh, a protective spell anchored to my back by ink mixed with dragon blood. A shell of shimmering red enveloped me, extending talons of energy deep into the bricks under me. The activation caused pain I wouldn’t have felt if I were a dragon, instead of a human using dragon magic. My skin burned as if caressed by dragon flame. Choking on a scream, teeth gritted, I took no real damage, but had to look at my body to convince myself I wasn’t charring away to ashes,

  Passing by, a wall of water crashed against me. I wasn’t moved. I didn’t even feel it.

  Down below on the street, Hiro’s family and servants weren’t so lucky; milling in indecision, waiting for someone higher in the clan to tell them what to do, they were swept out into the main street where fishtailing vehicles plowed into them. The rain was gone, but Hiro and the girls fell off the ladder. Fortunately, enough of their people had fallen under them to provide a half-way soft landing.

  Oddly, I noticed that no meat-puppets had been swept off the rooftops. Old Man must have opened a demon vortex to get rid of the corpses. Hard to prove mass murder without bodies. He’d pro
bably also call in a cleaning crew from the sorcerer’s guild to remove blood splatter and inconvenient memories from the witnesses. There was an iron rule that all preternaturals—PNs—could do as they liked, as long as the supernatural community weren’t exposed to a paparazzi feeding frenzy. Those guys were scary.

  On a one to one basis, humans were weak, not counting me of course, if I still qualified for human that is. But there were billions of humans on the planet. United by fear, armed with modern weapons, roused to violence, mankind could break our rule from the shadows, reclaiming the top spot in the food chain.

  All this flashed through my head as the red glow around me dissipated, and I was free to walk over and help the girls to their feet. Hiro was on his own; I didn’t want to get in trouble by moving him if he’d accidentally broken a hip.

  I walked the girls to the corner where several washed away relatives shouted in Japanese, reaching out for our assistance in untangling themselves from each other. They sounded hysterical with fear. I laughed at them, hurrying my charges on by. Something about my smile must have been the final straw. Several women fainted, slumping on the ground like drowned rats.

  “Odd,” I said. “I usually only have that effect on woman after I’ve fuc—”

  I paused, watching a woman who stood in the mouth of the alley. She studied the scene of chaos, a tiny smile on her lips, intrigue playing in her eyes. She wore a scarlet, wide brimmed hat that matched her lipstick. A clunky looking antique necklace hung around her neck. Her dress was black with a red leather belt. She wore red leggings that ended in cuff style, black boot.