Once Upon a Kiss Read online

  “I’ve thought about that. Thought about going to the cops. The National Guard.” Frustrated, he dragged a hand through his hair. “Nobody’s going to believe us, and the time we’d waste trying to convince them we’re not candidates for a padded cell would only give Sorak more of an advantage.”

  “You said there were demons in this world, that you put them in cages.”

  “There are plenty of them. But they’re a different type than you’re used to fighting. They’re not another species, they’re us. People come in a variety pack, Kadra. Most of them are good—at the core, they’re good. But a lot of them aren’t. So they prey on their own kind.”

  “To prey on your own kind is the greatest sin. You hunt these demons. Who else hunts them?”

  “Ideally? The law. It just doesn’t always work out. It’ll take more than a subway ride for me to explain it to you. I don’t always understand it myself.”

  “There is good and there is evil. The good must always fight the evil as the strong must always protect the weak. This is nothing that can change by walking through a portal.”

  He linked his hand with hers. Her vision was so clear, he thought. And her spirit so pure. “I love you,” he murmured. “I love everything about you.”

  The warmth poured into her, flooding her belly, overflowing her heart. “You only know one day of me.”

  “Time doesn’t mean a damn.” The train jerked to a halt at the next station. “We’ll be getting off soon. Whatever happens tonight, I need you to believe what I’m telling you now. I love you. My world was incomplete until you came into it.”

  “I believe what you say.” It felt strange and right to press her lips to his. “My heart is joined to yours.”

  But what she didn’t say, what she couldn’t bear to say, was that her world would be forever incomplete when she left him.

  “You’re thinking that when this is over, we won’t be able to be together.” He put his hand on her cheek now, kept his gaze steady on hers. “That I’ll have to stay in this world, and you’ll have to go back to yours.”

  “There is only one thing that should be occupying our minds now. That is Sorak.”

  “When we get off this train, we’ll worry about Sorak. Right now, it’s you and me.”

  “You have a very domineering nature. I find it strangely appealing.”

  “Same goes. When this is over, Kadra, we’ll find a way. That’s what people do when they love each other. They find a way.”

  She thought of the globe in her pouch. The key that was hers only until the battle was done. The weight of it dragged on her heart like a stone. “And when there is no way to be found?”

  “Then they make one. Whatever I have to do to make it work, I’ll do. But I won’t lose you.”

  “I can’t stay in your world, Harper. I am a slayer, bound by blood, by oath, and by honor to protect my people.”

  “Then I’ll go with you.”

  Stunned, she stared at him. “You would give up your world, the wonders of it, for me? For mine?”

  “For us. I’ll do whatever has to be done to have a life with you.”

  Tears swam into her eyes. She would never have shed one for pain, but one spilled down her cheek now. For love. “It is not possible. It would never be permitted.”

  “Who the hell’s in charge? We’ll have ourselves a sit-down.”

  She managed a wobbly smile. “It would take more than a subway ride to explain it to you. There are balances, Harper, that must be carefully held. I am here to right a wrong, and am given entrance by the power of Rhee’s magic. When I have done what I’ve been sent here to do, I’ll have no choice but to return. You will have no choice but to stay.”

  “We’ll just see about that. Here’s our stop.”

  “You are angry.”

  “No, this isn’t my angry face. This is my if-I-can-fight-demons-I-can-sure-as-hell-fight-the-cosmos face.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Trust me.”

  She trusted no one more. If she had been permitted to take a lifemate, it would have been Harper Doyle. His strength, his honesty, his courage had stolen her heart. She would miss, for the rest of her life, his strange humor, his bravery, his skilled mouth.

  When they had defeated Sorak, she would go quickly and spare them both the pain of leaving. And now she would treasure the time they had left as companions. She would relish the great deed they were fated to accomplish together.

  The first order of business, Harper thought, was to get down on the tracks and into the tunnels while avoiding detection by the subway cops. He explained the problem to Kadra as they moved down the platform away from the bulk of the waiting commuters.

  “Very well,” she said, and solved the dilemma by jumping down onto the tracks.

  “Or we could do it that way,” he grumbled. He flashed his ID in the direction of a couple of gawking businessmen. “Transit inspectors.”

  Hoping they subscribed to the New York credo of minding their own business, he jumped. “Move fast.” He took her arm. “Stay out of the light. Once we’re into the tunnels our main goal is to avoid being smeared on the tracks by an oncoming train. Then there’s the third-rail factor. See that?” He pointed. “Whatever you do, don’t step on that, don’t touch it. It’ll fry you like a trout.”

  He pulled his penlight from his pocket as they followed the track into the tunnel. “There are some areas in the system where homeless people set up housekeeping.”

  “If they have a house to keep, they cannot be homeless.”

  “We’ll save the tutorial on society’s disenfranchised for later. Some of the people who manage to live down here are mentally unstable. Some are just desperate. What we’re looking for, I figure, are the maintenance areas. Off the main tracks, where there’s room to establish a lair.”

  “There is no scent of people or demon here.”

  “Let me know when that changes.” He felt the vibration, saw the first flicker of light in the dark. “Train. Let’s move.”

  He doubled his pace toward the recess of an access door, and pulling her up with him, he plastered himself to the door. “Think thin,” he advised.

  He held on as the roar of the train blasted the air, gritted his teeth as the air pummeled them. Through the train’s lighted windows, faces and bodies of its passengers blurred by.

  “It is more exciting to be outside the box as it flies by than to be inside it.”

  He looked over at Kadra as the last car whizzed past. “One of these days you’ll have to tell me what you do for entertainment back in A’Dair. I have a feeling I’ll be riveted.”

  He tried to keep a map in his head as they wound through the labyrinth. Twice more they were forced to leap for a narrow shelter as a train sped past. But it was Kadra who swung toward a side tunnel.

  “Here. Sorak has been this way.”

  Harper caught no scent in the stale air other than the grease and metal of machines. “Can you tell how long ago?”

  “Some hours past, but fresh enough to track.”

  She moved carefully, knowing the dangers of an underground ruled by a demon. She kept her voice low as they began to hunt. “The Bok sees as well in the dark as in the light. Perhaps better. He will fight more fiercely for his lair than he would even for food.”

  “In other words, that skirmish we had this morning was just a preview of coming attractions.”

  She thought she was beginning to understand his odd expressions, so nodded. “Tonight, it is to the death.”

  She whirled, coat billowing, as she laid a hand on the hilt of her sword. Though he had heard no sound, the beam of Harper’s light picked out a shadow in the dark. He’d nearly drawn his gun when he recognized the uniform.

  “Transit cop.” He said it under his breath to Kadra. “Let me handle this. Hey, Officer. Riley and Tripp from the Post. We’re cleared to do a feature on—”

  He broke off as the figure took one shambling step toward him and his stiletto-like teeth gleamed in the narrow b
eam of light.

  The teeth parted, row after monstrous row. The hands, tipped with bluing claws, lifted. But the eyes—the eyes were still painfully human.

  “Help me. Please, God, help me.” And with a sound trapped between a sob and a howl, he leaped.

  Kadra’s dagger shot through the air and into his throat with an ugly sound of steel piercing flesh. The blood that trickled out of the wound was a thin reddish green.

  “The change was not complete with this one,” Kadra stated.

  “He was still human.” Furious, Harper dropped to his knees and tried to find a pulse. “Goddamn it, he was still a human being. He was a fucking cop. You killed him without a thought.”

  “He was neither human nor demon, but trapped between. I ended his life to save yours.”

  “Is that all there is?” Harper’s head whipped around, and his gaze burned into hers. “Life or death? He asked for help.”

  “I gave him the only help I could. Do you think it gives me pleasure? With his death, one of my people dies. That is the balance.” She crouched, pulled his dagger free. “That is the price.”

  “We could have gotten him to the hospital. A blood transfusion, something.”

  “That is fantasy!” She shot her dagger home. “He was dead the instant Sorak kissed him.” She gestured toward the body as it began to smoke. “Infected with demon blood. There was nothing to be done for him, in your world or in mine. If Sorak has found one human to change, he has changed others.”

  She glanced toward the dark maw of tunnel. She would rather face it, even if her own death waited inside, than the hot accusation in his eyes. “If you are unable to do what must be done, go back now. I will go on alone.”

  “He asked for help. He was scared. I saw the fear.” Now all Harper could see was a blackened skeleton. “And he never had a chance.” Sickened, Harper got to his feet. “We’ll finish it together.”

  “This is the way. I smell blood, some still fresh.” She walked deeper into the tunnel.

  8

  THEY MOVED IN the dark, guided by the thin beam of Harper’s penlight and Kadra’s instincts. And they moved in silence.

  She had killed a man—and to Harper the charred remains they had left behind in the tunnel were still a man. She had done so with the same cold efficiency she had used to destroy the hideous little two-headed monster in A’Dair.

  In the zoo he’d found her brutal focus fascinating, admirable. Even sexy. But there they had fought beasts—savage and hungry and alien despite their form.

  This had been a man. How could she be so certain that his lunge forward had been an attack instead of a plea?

  “You said it takes time for the transformation,” Harper began.

  “In my world.” She snapped the words out. “I can’t know—no one can know—how the change happens in yours. No demon has ever traveled from my world to yours until now. In A’Dair, the demon carries his victim off, into a lair. For twelve hours the human sleeps, a changing sleep that is like death. Only during this period is there any hope of being saved, and even that hope is small. Once the demon wakes, it is too late. The change is irreversible even if he is not complete. He is demon. And he feeds.”

  “If there’s a different time frame here, maybe there’s a different structure to the change.”

  “He waked. He walked. He would have fed on you if he had not been stopped. The blood was already mixed, Harper. His death was a mercy. What was still human inside knew.”

  She hadn’t known love could be painful. She hadn’t known that when your heart lay open to another it could be so easily wounded. But hers was, and the hurt ran down to the bone: he had looked at her as if she were the monster.

  She didn’t want to speak of it. She wished to push it aside and do only what she had come to do. But the ache in her heart was a distraction.

  “Every human death is a death inside me.” She spoke quietly, without looking at him. “I cannot save them all. I would give my life if that would make it otherwise.”

  “I know that.” But they both heard the doubt in his voice.

  The pain of it sliced through her, made her careless, made her vulnerable to what leaped at her out of the dark.

  It was snarling, teeth snapping. Its claws swiped, scoring her neck as she whirled to block.

  It was old and female. And it was mad. It skittered back, impossibly fast, like a spider, into the shadows. Kadra freed her sword and, going by scent and sound, struck out.

  It cackled. That was the only way to describe the sound it made as it attacked Kadra from behind.

  Harper’s bullet caught it in midair. Blood gushed, that awful hue of mixed red and green, as it thudded to the ground, arms and legs drumming.

  An old woman, Harper thought as he stared into the crazed and dying face. One of the pitiful who so often slipped through society’s fingers and into its bowels.

  She was old enough to be his grandmother.

  “You did not kill her.” Kadra crouched beside him. “You did not end her life, and you must not take the weight of it. Sorak killed her, and you ended her torment. You slayed the monster. The woman was already dead.”

  “Do you get used to it?”

  She hesitated, nearly lied. But when he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, she gave him the truth. “Yes. You must, or how could you pick up your sword day after day? But there is regret, Harper. There is sorrow for what is lost. The demon has no regret, no sorrow. No joy or passion, no love. I think when they feed on us, they hope to consume what it is that makes us human. Our heart, our soul. But they cannot. All they can take and transform is the body. The heart and soul live on in another place. And that place is locked to them.”

  “So Sorak’s come here. Maybe he thinks he’ll have better luck eating souls in this dimension.”

  “Perhaps.”

  The woman was all but ashes when Harper looked at Kadra again. “I’m sorry about before. I didn’t want to believe it could happen, that we could be used this way. It was easier to blame you for stopping it than Sorak for starting it.”

  “There will be more.”

  “And we’ll both stop it.” He reached out, touched a fingertip to the claw marks on her neck. “You’re hurt.”

  “Scratches, because I was careless. I won’t be a second time.”

  “Neither will I.” Not with the battle, he thought, and not with her. He took her hand as they got to their feet. “Let’s find this bastard, and welcome him to New York.”

  Harper kept his Glock in one hand, the knife in the other. The tunnel curved, and a dim light glowed at the end of it. He heard the rumble of a train behind them, but ahead there was silence.

  He could see signs of human habitation now. Broken glass, an empty pint bottle that had held cheap whiskey. Food wrappers, an old tennis shoe with the toe ripped out.

  “His lair.” Gesturing with her chin, Kadra slid her sword out of its sheath. “He is not alone.”

  “Well, why don’t we join the party?” He turned the knife in his hand. “We’ve brought our host some nice gifts.”

  She stripped off the coat, flung it aside. “He will not be pleased to see us.”

  The tunnel widened. There was more debris from the life that had chosen to spread underground. Spoiled food, battered boxes that might have served as shelter. A headless doll. And as they drew closer to the light, a splatter of blood against the dingy wall.

  The first three came out in a mad rush, all claws and teeth. Harper fired, sweeping his aim left to right. There was a stench of something not human as one threw the wounded at Harper, then came in like a missile beneath the body. Its teeth fixed in his calf as he sliced upward with the knife.

  The teeth continued to grip his leg like a vice even as the thing began to smoke. He cursed, kicked, and felt both cloth and flesh tear as the demi-demon struck the tunnel wall.

  He spun clear to see that Kadra had already killed the third, and a fourth that had tried to use the cover of their atta
ck for one of his own.

  She wasn’t even winded.

  “That was too easy,” she commented.

  “Yeah.” He limped over, gritting his teeth against the burning pain of the bite. “That was a real breeze.”

  “He toys with us.” Now she pulled out the healing cloth. “He insults us. Bind your wound.”

  He knelt, quickly tied the cloth around his bleeding leg. “And just how is sending four advance men with really nasty teeth an insult?”

  “He knew we would destroy them. Four, not fully changed, are child’s play.”

  “Yeah.” Grimly he tightened the knot on the cloth. “I’m feeling real childlike at the moment.”

  “He wants us in there. Wants to watch the battle. The smell of blood feeds him almost as much as the taste.”

  “Okay.” He tested his weight on the injured leg. It would have to hold. “Let’s go give his majesty a real five-star meal.”

  She drew her dagger, checked the balance of both blades, then nodded. “For your world and for mine. To the death.”

  “Let’s make that Sorak’s death.”

  They charged.

  Kadra caught a blur of movement above, and went into a roll that sent the demon flying over her head. She ran him through with one thrust, pulled her sword out clean before his body hit the ground. Using her hips, she reared up, shot her boots into the next attacker’s face. And was on her feet, hacking and whirling.

  She heard gunshots and, pivoting, saw Harper slay two demi-demons on his left and set to meet another on his right with his blade.

  She spun clear, slicing with her sword, and positioned herself so they fought back-to-back.

  “Sorak is close!” she shouted. “I smell him.”

  “Yeah.” Sweat dripped into Harper’s eyes and was ignored. “So do I.”

  He shot a bony, bald demi-demon who still wore a torn and faded New York Mets T-shirt. As the demon smoked and died at his feet, Harper scanned the tunnel.

  He couldn’t think about who they had been, he told himself, only what they had become.

  “I don’t see any more of them.”

  Still back-to-back, they circled. “Sorak!” Kadra shouted. “Come and meet your fate.”