Demon Forged

little twist of that blade, he thought.
    They could twist it all they wanted. He was ready to finish this.
    Resolute, he dressed and strapped on the weapons. The demons didn’t know that he’d been drinking nosferatu blood. He couldn’t equal their speed, but he might take one by surprise. Once his community was safe, he had nothing to lose by trying.
    His resolve almost failed at the bedroom door. A shudder ripped through him. He stopped, panic and dread tearing through his blood. Nothing to lose. Jesus Christ. Just his life. And he was scared shitless.
    Silently, he pressed his shaking fist to his forehead, got the fear under control. He walked out of the bedroom like he’d been stone-cold from the moment he’d woken up. They might take everything from him, including his life—but he wouldn’t give them the pleasure of knowing how much he wanted to keep it. How much he wanted to wake up with his friends tomorrow.
    He passed the library. To enter the living room, he had to step around an upended chair— still there from when Caym had beaten him down. No one had been here to right it. He’d known the demon had taken Eva and Petra to another location, but seeing his empty apartment hammered home how much power the demon had over him. Not that he’d needed the reminder.
    To his right, Caym stood in his demon form, his skin crimson, his leathery wings folded. Obsidian horns curled back from his forehead. The demon rhythmically flipped a dagger in his hand, catching it by the blade in his taloned fingers. When those hands had been pulverizing him, they’d looked human; Deacon wasn’t certain whether this display was for the man who’d taken up the chair in the corner of the room or him.
    Cadaverously thin and strung tight as a wire, the man watched Deacon with a cold, flat stare that didn’t quite hide the hunger behind it. He was bald as a nosferatu, and around his eyes, his swarthy skin appeared delicate, irritated. Deacon couldn’t smell the sickness that was killing the man, or the chemicals that had been treating it, but his desperation stank with the eye-watering punch of undiluted bleach.
    Deacon might have felt pity if he hadn’t had the sinking realization of what “final task” Stafford required of him.
    Unlike Caym, the congressman hadn’t shape-shifted. In a black suit and red tie, he took up the corner of Petra’s dainty, powder blue sofa, his legs crossed at the knees and his arm resting along the curved back. The demon regarded him in the same way Irena sometimes examined a sword, the same way Eva looked at a painting, and Deacon was suddenly certain he hadn’t fooled Stafford for one second. He’d bet the demon knew every thought that had passed through his mind since he’d woken up—not by looking into his head, but just by reading his face . . . or maybe just anticipating his every reaction, from strapping on his weapons, to his determination not to show them a hint of fear. Deacon thought he’d fooled Caym, though. And although Stafford had introduced himself only as Caym’s associate, he realized the demon with the power here wasn’t the one who’d beaten him. Caym was just the thug who got his hands bloody.
    He remained facing Stafford. “Where are my partners? I’ve done what you asked.”
    “Yes, you have.” Stafford gave a pleased smile. “The nephilim visited Special Investigations today, using your identification to get in. They’ll collect Ames-Beaumont’s blood, the others will try to stop them . . .” He waved his hand as if to say, And you can imagine the rest.
    Deacon could, all too well. His stomach threatened to heave. “Eva and Petra. Now.”
    “I need one more thing from you first, Mr. Deacon.”
    “Fuck you. I’ve finished my part of the deal.”
    “But I have not.” Stafford’s pleasant smile disappeared, replaced by a reptilian stare. “I have made a bargain with Mr. Lukacs—he takes a life, I help him gain immortality. He has completed his part. I do not like having my part unfulfilled.”
    Deacon glanced at the man. Lukacs’s hands shook against his bony knees. It didn’t take a giant leap to guess that a few days ago, those hands had been steady enough to hold a rifle. If Lukacs became a vampire, they’d be steady again—but he’d never look any healthier. “You don’t need me to turn him. Any vampire could do it.”
    “True. But if you insist on honesty, I can tell you that I haven’t needed you for any of this, Mr. Deacon. I