Fuck. No wonder the photos affected her so.
She sits with her elbows on her knees again, staring at the autopsy pictures along the back wall.
“Thorn and Regina are two of the ancients.”
“The ancients?” Zoe asks. Her face is still too pale, and the idea of glamouring her and making her forget all about the Bureau, about her partner’s death, about me...? It is strong. But despite her lack of experience, she is curious and determined. And something about her calls to me. Demands to be respected. Honored, even. She lost someone she cared for. I must explain why.
“Demons.”
She narrows her gaze at me. “Like you.”
“Not like me.” The words escape on a growl, and I punch the wall hard enough to snap several bones in my hand. Zoe yelps as the pain zings up my arm.
“Shit. Sin. What did you—?” Her jaw drops open as I straighten my fingers and the bones start to knit back together in front of her. “That’s...”
“When I have recently fed, I can heal many injuries in a few minutes,” I say. “One of the benefits of being...what I am.”
“You mean an incubus.”
“No. I mean the other part of me we will not speak of.” No one knows my true origins, and I certainly will not be sharing them with Zoe.
“You’re seriously not going to tell me.”
“No. It is not relevant to this case. Suffice it to say, Thorn and Regina are the two most vile demons ever to walk the earth. He was ‘born,’ if you will, at the beginning and is older than any of us. She…well, he caught her in his thrall soon after.”
“The beginning of what?” Zoe pulls her notebook out of her pocket, but I shake my head, and she drops it on the commander’s desk with a huff.
“Of everything. The universe, the whole of creation, is based on balance. Good and evil. Black and white. Yin and yang. For every good thing the Almighty created, something evil sprang into existence as well.”
The weight of the past, of my sins, exhausts me, and I sink down next to Zoe, staring at the commander’s glass paperweight. It is shaped like the moon, and stirs memories of begging for my death while the demon who insisted I call him mio maestro—my master in Italian—branded me.
“So, they’re really old. And what? Really strong? Like vampires?” Zoe asks, the curiosity in her voice helping me to focus.
“Thorn is part incubus. Fuck. For all I know he may be a full-blood incubus, but unlike most incubi and succubi who feed off of arousal, he feeds only on fear.” I run a hand through my hair, suddenly greatly appreciative of the ability to control my own body and mind. “Alone, he is more powerful than any demon I have ever known. But with Regina at his side, they are unstoppable.”
“No one’s unstoppable.”
I spin her chair to face me and let my anger rise to the surface. “Listen to me, Zoe. They are. Regina can compel any human or other with only her voice. Force them to do almost anything she wishes. They are helpless to resist. Thorn? He is even worse. I told you I could influence my…chosen targets with my talents? See some of their thoughts?”
She nods, her lower lip trapped between her teeth.
“Thorn can see everything. He can force a man or woman to stab themselves in the heart with as little effort as you would spend to bat away a fly. And he lives to terrorize his victims until they go mad from fear. Every. Single. Moment. Pure torture. These two are nothing you have ever seen. And you will not go up against them. Ever. You will lose, and then you will die.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Sin.” She shoves back at me, springs to her feet, and stomps over to the wall behind the commander’s desk. “This was my partner. The man who trained me.” Jabbing at Temple’s photo, she chokes back an oath. “And I had to kill him. I deserve to know why.”
“Because once you are under Thorn's thrall, you are nothing. No one. Whoever you were before? That is gone. Wiped away so thoroughly, your soul rebels and drives you insane. It is the worst kind of pain, knowing you used to be someone else—someone better—but having no memory of that time and no hope of ever reclaiming it.” My chest heaves, my throat tight. “The moment Regina first spoke to your partner—for she always initiates the contact—his death was assured. You...you showed him mercy.”
Zoe doesn’t move, her expression unreadable, but when I take a wheezing breath, I can taste her emotions. It would be so easy to glamour her, and between healing my broken bones and reliving the worst experiences of my very long existence, the temptation is strong. Turning away, I struggle for control—something I have not had to do in centuries.
“Sin.”
She’s close enough to drop her voice to a whisper. “How do you know all of this?”
My fingers shake as I shed my jacket and unbutton the cuff of my dress shirt, rolling it up to my elbow. Facing her once more, I hold out my arm. “It took me years. To scar the skin this deeply. But the ink is spelled. It returns. Every decade or so, it seeps through. When that happens, I take two weeks somewhere full of people. Somewhere wild. Las Vegas. Monte Carlo. Ibiza. Somewhere I can find a soundproofed room to hide my screams as I burn my flesh over and over again. Somewhere...I can feed to my heart’s content to replenish my strength each night until I no longer have to see the reminder of the thing he made me into.”
Zoe’s green eyes take on a slight shimmer as she lays her hand over the scars. The familiarity of the touch, the empathy in her voice, do something to my heart I am ill prepared to handle. Emotions I have not felt since I descended into Hell flare to life, and I look away. Until her fingers tighten subtly. “You? Were…?”
“Yes. For hundreds of years, I was his slave. And the things I did...” I clear my throat when my voice cracks. “I have only scraps of memories. A blessing I am certain I do not deserve. After I fought my way free from his control, I dragged him to Hell. Both of them. But one does not simply drop two of the most powerful and vile creatures in existence at Beelzebub’s doorstep and walk away. Hell’s Prince is too cunning. Too desperate for more souls to torture for all eternity.”
Her breath hitches, and she locks her gaze with mine. “You were trapped there with them.”
Seven
Zoe
My partner has been to Hell. And not in the figurative sense. My fingers still rest over the heavily scarred skin on his arm, and I pull away, my cheeks flushing hot. “I’m...um...sorry...”
Sin waves his hand away like finding out you’re working with someone from the Underworld is an everyday occurrence. Maybe it is for him, but not for me. “You could not have known. What remains to be seen is whether Commander Eve knew before she sent us out on this call.”
He picks up the tablet and taps the screen a few times, then gives me a curt nod. “All of the files have now been transferred to my secure online vault. I would rather not encroach on the commander’s private space any longer. There are soundproof conference rooms upstairs. We should claim one for the next few hours.”
Logic. I can work with logic. And detachment. His eyes are mostly one color again—a sapphire blue, but there’s still a hint of red surrounding them. His voice is cool and professional, and he straightens his shoulders as he buttons his sleeve, then shrugs into his jacket.