Something Wicked Read online

  Something Wicked

  Kim Knox

  Kim Knox

  Something Wickeed

  by

  Kim Knox

  Copyright © 2020 by Kim Knox

  All rights reserved.

  This story has been re-edited.

  It was also published in its original form in the box set, Taming the Monster.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  About the Author

  Also by Kim Knox

  Demonic Attraction

  Chapter One

  Death stank of piss and rotten flesh. Death also had wings—Felix tilted her head, peering out through the crack in the pantry door—and possibly horns.

  Horns? Fuck.

  What had she been thinking? Yes, she was trained—she winced—sort of. But nowhere near enough to take on a farmhouse full of high-level horned demons.

  Harbingers of Death. Apprentice slang had them as Bringers. Mentors often insisted they shorten their full title simply to ‘Death’, a reminder of exactly what the demons were to flesh, to anything earthmade. In that moment, she had no problem with following that command. Especially as it was likely to be her death.

  Felix wet dry lips and fought to bring her wild pulse under control. She needed a clear head. There was at least one Bringer still caught within the wards she’d erected around the sprawling farmhouse. And she continued to stare right at it. Because she was stupid and had panicked and used every shard of bloodstone she had to protect the walls of the old stone building. To encase them. Rather than first expel the enemy.

  She pushed down the mortification at her own failings and focused.

  Primary training. Identify the demon hulking at the far end of the kitchen.

  She held down a groan as she unfolded her legs. Magic had to flow through her flesh and she was practically a knot. She’d been cramped, curled over and hunched in what was little more than a shallow shelved cupboard for what felt like hours. The pantry-cold tiles worked through to her flesh, chilling her skin even through the tough material of her apprentice breeks.

  Trapped in the cramped space, it was the only time she’d ever been happy to be short. She doubted any other member of her year could fit under the bottom shelf of a pantry. She winced. Though they’d also be happy to live without the heavy stink of uncooked, muslin-wrapped meat just above their heads.

  Not focusing. Scatterbrain. She scowled. His bloody voice. As if she needed Zacharias Mael in her head.

  Pressing her lips together, she added another layer of magic to the power already infusing the thin bands of jasper bound around her wrists. She had to mask her energies before she sought out the demon. But they were only apprentice layers, a thin dusting that pricked at her senses and screamed, “Not enough, you stupid girl!” Screamed it in his voice.

  She closed her eyes and drew in long, slow breaths, exhaling silently, and began to practise the singular skill of a magus.

  The warmth of her energy swelled under her skin, tracing over the varying protecting crystals grown into the muscles of her arms, across her collarbones and down her sternum.

  Power plucked at the cool shards of sapphire, consuming them, transforming the magical energy in her flesh to magic she could twist and turn for her own use.

  And it would be untraceable. Her body-wards protected her from the beast that would happily feed on her. She had to believe that. Completely.

  Her awareness expanded. A shining rush, pulsing around her, the earthmade shapes gleamed, limned by subtle shades of colour. She pushed her astral self out beyond the heavy pantry door, now edged in brilliant green, to the farmhouse kitchen.

  Autumn sunlight cut through dusty windows to draw gold over the long, wooden table with its plates set for lunch. A shadow passed, tipping the room into brief darkness. The shape drawn against the kitchen cupboards suggested a mirror of her Bringer. Shit. Was the beast in the kitchen one of a pair, or a triad? Or a quad? How many more had she trapped within the house?

  The space presented her with colours. From the green of the kitchen table filling the room, the silver of the limestone floor, or the deep grey of the granite work surfaces. Plastics stood out in brilliant searing whites, as unnatural to her magic as a Bringer itself.

  Steam rose in slow curls from the kettle sitting on the counter, proving that her sense of time was skewed. Her magic stroked over the tough plastic and she breathed against the bite-back of the sour, synthetic material. Time and energy rolled through her, offering information. It’d reached boiling point only fifteen minutes before. Fifteen minutes. Was that all? Her concentration almost faltered, magic snapping quickly against her thoughts.

  Felix’s jaw tightened and curse words burned on her tongue. She ignored the sharp pinch of pain. She’d thrown herself into this mess. Failure meant death. Most definitely hers.

  What breed was this Bringer? She’d seen horns…maybe? Which put it at the fourth breed. At the very least. Her fingers curled into her palms, short nails digging into soft flesh. The pain kept her fixed. She would not lose herself in how bad this was. How very bad.

  This was just her level of luck. Felix almost snorted. She should be used to it.

  The scrape and gouge of plaster grated against her senses and drew the focus of her power finally to the demon. Shaped through the lens of her magic, long, curved talons tore at stone. They were clean and free of demon runes. No help.

  Their unnaturalness fed back into her, chilling her blood. The demon ached to feed his endless hunger—he would certainly eat her whole—but he also fought to get to his brethren circling the old stone farmhouse.

  With her heart thudding, she slipped closer. Identify. Determine weakness. Destroy. The simple rules of being a magus didn’t offer much comfort, much certainty when she was faced with a horned demon.

  A snarl, dark and cold, ripped through a layer of protecting magic and Felix fought her panic. She pressed a hand to her mouth to quiet her quickened breaths, to deny any gasps and involuntary noises. The demon hadn’t turned. He hadn’t sensed her. But she had to be careful, had to remember everything, every sound, every touch, even the decayed stink of its almost-flesh brought death.

  Felix willed her fast pulse to slow. She could do this. She’d faced simulations in her training. Carcasses bespelled by her mentors…but nothing prepared her for the real thing. Especially when her magic neared him, a lens that would sharpen his unfinished body.

  The icy prick of death stabbed at her, swirling around the half-formed beast, with his deadly white wings, whiplike tail and slender frame. Hunger pulsed. An eternal hunger for life, for living meat, for anything earthmade.

  Harbingers of Death devoured. They mirrored the magi, with magic in their flesh...yet theirs was selfish, hoarded, converting and transforming the energy of crystals, metal, anything grown into food. And a magus’s flesh and magic, to a Bringer, was the sweetest meat of all.

  Closer, she needed to be closer. Taking a slow breath, she twisted her courage and slipped her magical form between the wall and the demon.

  Tears ran onto the fierce press of her true-hand covering her mouth. Fuck, it hurt to be so close, but she had to hold her position. His skull would identify him. An agonising heartbeat later and his writhing form snapped into a firm shape. The pain of searching lanced her, racing hot needles through her magical pathways. Her sternum, collarbones and arms pulsed with a ferocious white fire.

  Focus. The word beat against her brain.

  The Bringer’s skull was pure bone. White. Two demon runes scored his cheek. His clan name. Thorunn. And his given name, Feoh. Beneath the runes was a single stroke. A one. Feoh was first amongst his brethren. Fuck. Fuck. She stared into darkened eye sockets, yanking her attention away to a pair of pale, twisting ram’s horns pushed out from his temples. A third breed Harbinger. Dagon. And they came in quads. Were there three of his brethren caught within her wards?

  Felix yanked back her magic. The rush of fear and panic bubbled hot in her chest. She slumped—her body folding in on itself—barely aware of the flow of her energies into her flesh and the dissolution of pain. Her true-gaze still fixed on the demon, she admitted how absolutely and utterly fucked she was.

  She was about to be a Fourth Year apprentice. Her last year. But she wasn’t a natural magus. A fighter. The highest beast she’d fought—in the safety of the arena—had been an eighth breed demon. A Mulciber. Little more than a sprite. And even then… Shit. She had no chance. The monster hulking at the end of the kitchen would make a fully trained magus pause. And then probably panic.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why had she run? The Conclave wanted her bound, married two days into term. So what? How…how was that decision by the Landgrave and two of his toadies worse than being trapped in a kitchen with a Dagon?

  Felix stared at the inside of the door. A thin thread of light cut through to form a line over her leg. It edged the scarlet of her apprentice garter, tied above her boot, and a fist tightened in her gut. She wasn’t ready for this. But no one was coming for her. No one had any idea where she was.

  She’d run, illegally piggybacked on a detail of magi and burst into the Upper-World, with no though
t but of escaping her fate. Of how she would not be tied to him.

  Idiot girl. She deserved his censure now. Though Zacharias Mael was probably more than happy that his future bliss was no longer bound hard and fast to her. She’d be little more than blood splatter and crystal shards before the day ended.

  For a long moment, she closed her eyes and let the chilled air slide in and out of her lungs. Finding her calm. Finding her power. No one was coming for her. No one. The Bringer would eat her. The decision of when and how rested solely with her.

  There was still enough jasper circling her wrists to maintain her mask. She pressed another layer of magic over her flesh, needing that security, and pushed herself to her feet.

  The layout of the room was fixed in her mind. Masked, and slow moving, she could creep up on the demon. There was a plastic vegetable knife beside the kettle with a good grip and a vicious serrated edge. And tongs. Not ideal. But pressed together and with enough thrust, they should suffice. She had to stab the Bringer in his heart and throat. In that order—

  Fuck…

  Felix pressed her hands to her face, her heart slamming and sweat slicking her skin. She really was a shit magus. Her fingers curled into fists against her cheeks. Baby steps. Break down her goals. The first point: open the door.

  She pressed her hand to the solid wood of the door and closed her eyes. Her magic drifted over it, the turquoise imbedded under her skin working to bring silence to the hinges and the lock, to her breathing, to the creak and step of her boots. Any sound made by her or anything she touched would be quieted. That was the theory. Felix cursed the fact that she was almost bottom of her year. Not one ounce of magic came easily to her.

  Taking the door handle, she turned it in slow increments. Her chest burned as she stopped her breath, too aware of making the slightest sound.

  The heavy scents of the Bringer swept over her and for a moment she paused. Others found a horned demon’s scent enticing, another of its lures. Not her. Her nose didn’t work as it should. To her, Bringers stank, something sharp and bitter. She winced. Yes, her only magical skill was a useless nose.

  Felix stared at the demon as she edged her way through the narrow opening of the door. The Bringer still scrabbled at the wall, desperate to pierce the bloodstone wards. That was a weakness: his distraction. And he was alone, broken and cut off from at least one of his circling quad. She hoped.

  It wasn’t much of an advantage, but she’d take it.

  Felix stepped beyond the safety of the pantry and eased forward, her feet light over the limestone flooring, her breathing shallow. She stretched her eyelids, her eyes burning as she refused to blink. A moment, a heartbeat of not having every sense trained on the Bringer could be her last second of life.

  The knife her magic had skimmed sat on the green-lit bamboo chopping board. Her fingers stroked it, wincing at the unnatural bite of the plastic against her skin and magic. But the moulded grip fit well in her hand. The discarded tongs, left farther along the counter slipped into her other hand. Not very sharp, but its synthetic nature would eat through Bringer flesh. Yet more theory. She pushed down her pain and pressed on.

  A Dagon wasn’t the sprite-like Mulciber, the only Bringer she’d faced. And even then that Bringer had been a conjured carcass. Pressing synthetics to a Mulciber would plume it into a choking cloud of demon dust. A horned demon could knock away a plastic projectile with little harm to itself. She had to do the unthinkable. She had to get close, press herself against the beast. Fight his lure even as he fed on her. And stab him. Twice.

  Felix edged around the long oak table, her heart in her throat, her pulse a riot. She willed her breathing to slow and fought her rising panic. Closer. Only a yard away now. She needed to be as close as she could get, closer than she ever wanted to get.

  His spade-tipped tail flicked, missing her thigh by mere inches. Knuckles to her mouth, her teeth biting against the bone, stopped the scared squeak. She was safe. He hadn’t detected her—

  A layer of her warding fell to the Bringer. The magic snapped back and shrivelled under his proximity. A deep, rich ring of laughter echoed around the room and heat bloomed in her chest. He knew. He knew she was there.

  Felix held down a curse at the delicious shiver that rippled under her skin. And there was her weakness. A Bringer’s voice tempted her, more than scent, even more than touch.

  “Ah…”

  An eerily graceful tilt of his bleached skull froze Felix. She couldn’t look into his eyes. Magic had protected her before, but in the flesh he would catch her. Hold her. Devour her.

  Light painted his flat profile and in it the gilded beauty of his horns caught her breath. Her chest tightened with the pained thuds of her heart. No. He wasn’t beautiful. He was death. Death.

  The insane mix of terror and want swirled her thoughts. The Bringer lifted his arm, an ivory claw poised. “A little magus.” Warmth wrapped around the words and she fought not to drift into its trap, into the smooth, seductive whisper of his voice. “Your magic is sweet. Untried. Untouched.”

  Heat flooded Felix’s face. Her mouth dried. Fuck. Fuck. Arousal. There, low in her belly, a fierce, hot and unfamiliar throb. Not unfamiliar… Her thoughts snapped and she sucked in air. Close. Too close. She had to keep enough of herself free and aware. She flexed her fingers around the plastic grip of her knife. The sour hit of pain cut through the worst of the temptation, leaving a lingering sweetness.

  “Oh, there’s some fight to you.” Humour lined the demon’s voice. Inviting. Treacherous. “But still, you’re green, not yet wearing your nexus ring.” A hot little sigh escaped and skittered across her skin. “Your magic is simply…succulent.”

  The Bringer turned from the wall and through the lens of her magic and eyes she almost swayed at the unearthly beauty of his form. Lithe with curving, white wings and a tail that wove in a slow, sensuous dance…

  Felix shook her head. Everything about a Bringer was false, meant to tempt, to draw in his victim. Drifting too close to the snare of his wings brought death. A devouring.

  “Do you think you’re hidden from me, little magus? Such a thin mask. How much of that crystal is wrapped around and through your heavenly flesh?” His eyes, a bright gleam in the endless velvet black of their sockets, fixed on her and her heart jolted. “Not much, I’d wager. You’re so achingly new to all of this.” The fixed bone of his face…shifted…and Felix bit at the inside of her cheek to keep back her whimper. Wrong. So wrong. The socket moved, and formed an almost imperious brow. “What are you? About to start your time at the Institute? A sweet little thing. So fresh. So…choice.”

  Was that what she felt like? A weakling, barely formed in her magic? Doubt was a fist in her gut. But still, she edged around the table, her body silent, pain a distracting constant in her hands. The Bringer hadn’t struck. Did he truly know where she was?

  “Don’t believe the lies, little one.” The thin line of his mouth curled upwards in a wry smile. Felix blinked. His mouth didn’t move to speak… Her gaze dropped to his throat. A haze of magic vibrated against his stretched, white flesh. There. There was her second target.

  “We’re not dangerous creatures. We’re simply…misunderstood.” In a slow sweep, he offered up a clawed hand. Talons gleamed, smooth as ivory. Her need to touch them, to stroke her fingers along the sensual curve burned hot. “Come.” The twist to his mouth deepened and that ache was back in her flesh, almost robbing Felix of thought. His voice was sin itself. “Touch me.”

  Something about his flesh, his scent, should warn her, but the sharp odours simply wrapped around her and their strangeness pricked. She slipped forward, clinging to her free thoughts. She was close, so close to the creature, the distance between them little more than inches beyond her stretched arm. And she would touch the Bringer. Her throat tightened, sweat and tremors gripping her flesh. It had to be done. It was the only way she’d have to take her targets.