11. Sherlock with a Death Wish — Part Two

Hours passed as he waited for something new to appear in the hunter's messages. Hacking wasn't like the movies, where it happens instantly and the plot can move forward within minutes.

Time, or perhaps patience, was the most precious resource. He twitched and fidgeted like an addict in withdrawal as time trickled down. The night had passed.

He groaned as the sun spread its first fingers through the heavy drapes. Dust motes glittering and dancing in the still air. He longed to bathe in it. To luxuriate in its warmth.

The chill in him grew more intolerable by the second. And he could do nothing about it. Waiting it was. It took another two hours, and the sun's rise to its throne was now complete.

As he read their messages, his frigid fingers spasmed, ached, and stiffened.

He nearly drained the whisky. Its venomous burn doing nothing to ease the void inside him. The hunter's chat glowed on his screen.

It was a neon graveyard of idiots signing their own death warrants. None of them had a clue what the real deal was. Cannon fodder. All of them.

Jared87: Any sign of the demon bitch and her new pet?

> Last seen 3rd & Ash. But the trail's colder than a necromancer's dick.

He growled.

Bitch, pet, he'd rip that one's tongue out through his throat for that. The chat bubble appeared almost instantly. He stared at it until the response came.

Dana93: Demon's heading to St. Magdalene's. Rigged with Silverthorn. Bring the vampire's head back as a trophy.

SisterDagger69: She's with a mortal. Entranced. No vampire. Weakness confirmed?"Weakness?" Ash snorted. The bottle smashed in his grip, glass shards biting into his palm.

Glittering like the bone fragments he'd left in the Guilds lab. Her blood in the bourbon sang to him.

Come wreck me again.

He glowered at his hand. The shards nipped and stung. The pain felt borrowed. It was a receipt for the spoiling they'd share.

His new black blood mingled with the venom-laced whisky. He licked it clean, grinning widely.

Her essence was getting stronger, searing inside him. His gums burned, fangs threatening to drop.

Again, like her bite still lived under his skin, a debt unpaid.  He owed her answers. She'd have to win them. He inspected his palm as the cuts quickly knitted shut.

"Thirsty, Red?" he said. Muttering to the empty room. "Join the club."

The scent of spilled liquor filled the air. Smokey, astringent, a waste of good alcohol. He'd have to steal another bottle once this was done.

Start a collection. Liora's poison, Liora's lies, Liora's every puzzle piece. He squared his shoulders, cracked his neck, and his countenance emptied.

Let's test that weakness theory, demon.

She wouldn't fall for such an obvious trap. He parsed through the messages. Frowning as he read. Trying to piece it together.

It clicked as his ribcage flared with a sudden burst of roasting heat. Gone before he could cling to it. She was herding them. Lambs racing towards their own slaughter. She was probably herding him, as well.

Did the demon regret him that much? Or was she sending a message? Both, most likely.

He'd figure it out later. The succubus enjoyed a dramatic moment. That much was clear. His screen kept flickering as more encrypted messages flooded in.

AaronHH: There's a team of six waiting for her.

> Left a trail of claw mark breadcrumbs behind her. Any intel on her powers?

Ash stilled as static, it was violet, fractured the text and crawled like spider legs across the screen. It cleared faster than a blink.

Leaving behind a frail hint of pomegranate in the air. He stopped breathing as he waited for the hunter's response. He didn't think they had anything to kill her with.

Liora had erased all memory of whatever weapon they'd once had. He wondered if it was out of self preservation or self destruction.

She had a taste for both. He'd found the traces of the cryptomancer amongst the corrupted files.

He'd have his name soon. She might not be a programmer, but her instincts were as sharp as one. When had she done it? Why?

Had she expected someone to look into her? He wanted to see her face when he called her by her human name. She hadn't gotten rid of that jewel. But that wasn't the only name she had hidden.

Her demonic title was still out there. Waiting for him to track it down. The urge to do exactly that swirled like a nest of rats in his mind. The chat came alive again, and he refocused.

Dana93: No intel. She's a tourist. Fucks, and flees before we know she's here. The vampire is her longest lay.

Her power wasn't just shadows and soul-stealing. He knew that much. But he'd have to uncover what else she had. Lightning, he recalled. Lightning had wreathed her claws in the restaurant.

Ash's grin was all edges as his chin lifted. If they didn't know, he wouldn't tell them. Liora had called him a tourist.

He'd rub it in her face that they were one and the damned same. He couldn't stop himself.

Before his brain noticed and considered the risks, he hijacked Jared's account. Their IP addresses bloomed like bloodstains on his screen. Coordinates for a funeral.

Encryption was easy. Forgetting Jason's wolf-eyed girl mid-scream? No script could fix that. Nothing could. The cold in him honed into a double-edged blade that only Liora's fiery venom could thaw.

Jared87: Correction: He's her longest mistake. Bring body bags.

The chat exploded. He laced his hands behind his head and leaned back in his hard chair. Smiling like the arrogant prick he was. Perfection.

Louisa77: She HEALED him. Succubi don't heal—they drain their victims dry. He means something.

Means something.

Means nothing. The words looped, sharp as her claws, hooked in his gut.

Means she's not done with me.

He gave a satisfied little nod.

Good, let her try to finish it. She'd debugged him.

She hadn't coddled him. She'd spliced herself into his cells and called it mercy, a fools bargain. Ash's scars glowed faintly as his thoughts ran wild.

The silver threads writhing under his skin pulsed and thrummed. It was a morse code even he couldn't decipher.

SisterDagger69: The vampires gone underground. No trace since she healed him. She killed Marcus, David, and John for him.

Marcus. David. John. Hunter's names were bullet points in his mental ledger. Three down.

Always room for more. For all of them. Scorched-earth or nothing. Agony was all they deserved. His brain memorized every word they dared to spit.

AaronHH: Maybe he's ash now.

> Cover your eyes before you enter the church. Not even God knows what you'll see.

His fangs punched through his lower lip. Copper bled buttery, bright, and cloying. The mortal would suffocate on her fire. They always did.

The thought didn't calm him. A serpent unfurled in his gut, hungry and biting, the image of her teeth in some faceless mortal's throat flashed behind his eyes.

His fangs lengthened. A beast paced along his grinding ribs, snarling, roaring, claws scoring the ivory. She didn't need a mortal.

She needed his ruin. His blood. And he'd make her choke on both. But the man in him, the fading ghost of who he'd once been, railed against those claims.

Lies. She'd chosen a meal over a reckoning. She would pay for it. He wasn't going back in a cell, not if his plan worked out.

He read and reread Aaron's words. Something that felt all too human as he sat there, starving, alone, and frozen to the core.

If they walked in and she was fucking the mortal... enough. She wouldn't. You feel that need in you, she will too.

Forget the mortal, work on

—the laptop screen fizzed. More purple static skittered across it. He sat straighter, glowering at it.

SisterDagger69: I doubt it. She's not finished with him or she'd have left.

>Whatever the vampire did to our servers still holds. Nothing is getting in or out.

He crossed his fingers that would hold until he'd destroyed every threat to his existence.

He'd jammed it, all their servers and computers, in that forsaken lab. Stopping them from sharing the research they'd compiled while dissecting him with the rest of their prisons peppered around the country.

He had sworn an oath to do the same with every other facility those hypocrites kept supernaturals chained up in. But Jason... he'd have hated him for vanishing.

He'd hate Ash for leaving their mother alone, hidden away across the world. Back in her home country. One he'd never seen and never would.

There was a piercing twinge in his corpse heart at the thought. His brother would have hated him for what he was now, too.

A vampire for a brother. Hunted by the same people who killed Jason. He gave a dry, dead chuckle, clearing his thick throat. Some fantasy author would have made a killing off that. He'd engraved "brother" into their leader's spine.

The knife felt lighter after that. It was enough Ashton had given him that. Even if it didn't feel like it.

A sudden ache spread through his muscles, throbbing right where the electrodes had burrowed. Phantom pain outlived their torture.

Dana93: She's at St. Magdalene's. Walked right in. Silverthorn traps are set. Move in — It dissolved into gibberish. His head shook, hands rising as if to swat it away, and his jaw dropped."No, no, no!" Ash yelled, fist slamming down on the vanity.

The entire thing shook, rocked, and creaked. A split appeared in the glass jewelry holder inches from his knuckles.

His fingers traced the claw marks in the dark wood as the shadow he'd seen on the fire escape earlier seeped through a crack in the window.

Its tendril coiled around the laptop and pulsed once.

Smug, as she had been at first. It mirrored the cadence of Liora's hips the other night, taunting, relentless. His hand closed around air as he tried to grab it.

It slipped away. His screen fragmented into static, showing a fleeting silhouette, gone before he could name it. The air tasted burnt, like metallic ozone and caramelized sugar.

He scowled. "Subtle, Liora. Real subtle."

He glared and hurled insults at it, but it had vanished. It left a faint glyph on the keys, a small looping, endless mark.

His thumb brushed it. It was cold. It throbbed once, heat, mimicking the scars rhythm in his throat.

It was a mere facsimile of her shadows warmth when they'd curled around his wrists. It faded away too, nothing but a black hole where the chat had been."Cryptic demon," he said, sighing through his nose as he snapped the laptop shut.

Good thing he'd planned for this. He'd been prepared to lose it to the hunters. Should've known a demonic woman would be the one to destroy it.

His pre-planning didn't calm him. His nails bit into his palms, veins flashing black, pale blue, and gold. Gore stained visions rolled through his head. Next time, he'd chain it.

Perform an autopsy, see how she wove defiance, fury, and chaos into everything she touched. Even when she wasn't here, she left her mark. He jumped to his feet.

The room suddenly felt stifling. He tugged at his collar as he paced and paced, wearing a trail on the plush rug.

He kept spitting her name like spiteful darts. Ash pulled his phone off the charger beside her bed. Stared at the sunset countdown he always kept running.

Two hours and forty-seven minutes remained until he could leave. Two hours and forty-seven minutes bleeding like sap from a tapped maple.

He mapped the scars on his chest as time wore down. Scars for hours, talon tracks for minutes. Her timekeeping.

His tomb.

Fine. Old-school it is. Game fucking on, Liora.

She might have the edge on experience and time. But he was stubborn as a Rottweiler with a rabbit in its jaws. She wanted to run?

Fine, but he'd be hot on her heels at every turn. She wanted him gone?

Ha.

Should've thought about that, Red. He spied the silver knife she'd used to clean his wound.

Its hilt still sang with the hymn of her grip. The blade's edge gleamed, still crusted with the decay she'd cut from him.

She'd scraped him clean with a murderer's tool. Had she kept the scraps? Pocketed them to admire her cruelty later? He would have.

He'd need proof that it had happened. She could've killed him with it at any time.

Instead, she'd healed him. Using a weapon designed to destroy him. Silverthorn, ironically, was the only thing that could slice yew out of a vampire.

If she'd stabbed him a few inches higher... But she'd let him live. Left him chasing her ghost as she laid a path of destruction for him to follow.

It was the most deranged courtship he'd ever seen. Twisted and fucked up, absolutely rotten. He loved it. Finally, something fun to do. He'd write the vows in their blood.

Heat prickled inside him, embers popping.

So it wasn't just desire that made the frost warm?

Rage worked, too. He straightened his spine, hauled up as much arrogance as he'd earned, and clenched his fists.

Oh, they'd fight. Until one of them broke. Truce? Screw that.

If she wanted Hell, he'd ruin her in its flames and drown her in her own hunger first.

My move now. Good luck. You won't see it coming.