Once a Demon Read online

  Once a Demon

  by

  Dina James

  Kyle tried to suppress a derisive smile at the monument that had been erected next to the one he was visiting. It was a large, weeping angel, prostrate over a fat marble block. A bouquet of faded flowers rested at the base. It hadn’t been there the last time.

  It almost matched the fountain monument on the opposite side in size. Truly, a working fountain. Who chose a fountain as a monument? Perhaps the departed had been fond of gardens. Even in death there was competition.

  Let them compete with one another, Kyle thought as he laid his single, perfect, long-stemmed rose upon the ground below the monument that overwhelmed both the plot it sat upon and the markers on either side. It was a hulking stone dog with wings — a gargoyle most called it -with a bowed head. It was chained to the pedestal it sat upon with a thick, heavy chain attached to its metal spiked collar.

  It was no average gargoyle. It was the Guardian of Hopes and Dreams, and when Kyle had seen it he knew exactly where it belonged and had it installed. Seven feet tall from the base to the tips of the wings, the monument dwarfed any other in the graveyard. Unless someone built a mausoleum, it would remain the most prominent.

  Kyle kissed his fingertips and touched them gently to the petals of the rose before disappearing.

  A reflection that had been shimmering in the water of the adjacent fountain smiled and disappeared also.

  Red liquid swirled gently around the crystal wine glass held between his middle and fourth fingers.

  Elegant.

  That was the word for it.

  Of course, the gesture was as purposeful as it was elegant, as were all of his gestures. It kept the liquid from congealing so that it was drinkable.

  Cold, but drinkable.

  If he could be bothered to drink it, that is.

  His pale sea-green eyes were focused on the flames in the hearth, though his mind was elsewhere. Watching a fire flickering in the dark always brought him a modicum of comfort and helped him arrange his thoughts. It afforded him perspective.

  Most of the time.

  He smiled wryly as he sensed a presence, and though he didn’t bother to lift his eyes to acknowledge it, he did greet it.

  “Rude as ever, Destrati.”

  “Did you expect otherwise?” Nikolai countered as he all but swaggered to the mantelpiece to lean against it indolently. “The day you consider me polite is the day I cut that ridiculously long hair of yours, whether or not it would grow immediately back.”

  Kyle arched an eyebrow and his wry smile grew a bit wider as he reached to smooth his chestnut ponytail mockingly. Held in place by a strip of leather, it fell down his back to rest neatly between the blades of his shoulders. Long, perhaps, but well kept. Such had been the style back then.

  “And what brings the Destrati Sovereign to breach the solace of my home and my dinner hour?” Kyle asked, eyeing Nikolai pointedly.

  “I have a standing invitation,” Nikolai defended with a smirk. “Or so it could be interpreted, no? I believe you said I could return anytime I wished, though I’m sure you meant in order to check on Trina while she was here. I merely took ‘anytime’ in the broader sense.”

  Kyle rolled his pale eyes. A human gesture, to be certain, but appropriate.

  “You have learned much more than how to master your power,” Kyle said dryly. “I didn’t teach you to find loopholes.”

  “I was always good at interpreting things to my advantage,” Nikolai said. “Besides, I knew you’d never invite me here. Invitations are an annoying necessity for everyone, even for a Sovereign. Besides, Trina wants to see you, and I said I would ask. You’re welcome in our home, you know. Not that you would ever impose. Though, truly, it wouldn’t be an imposition.”

  Kyle didn’t reply as he contemplated his glass and the deep red liquid within.

  Nikolai seated himself on one of the chairs facing the hearth and waited. After a long few moments of being completely ignored, he rose and spoke. “Well, I said I would tender the invitation, and so I have. After all, it’s not like you have a postbox, nor would you give anyone the address even if you had. Trina is trying to bring Clan Destrati out of the Dark Ages. I’ll remind her that her attempts should not extend to you.”

  With a bow he knew Kyle wouldn’t see or acknowledge, Nikolai took his leave, vanishing as easily as he’d appeared.

  Kyle brought his glass to his lips and drained the liquid within. Cattle blood never tasted the same as human, but it served a purpose, without the hunt. Hunting grew tiresome after a while, no matter the prey.

  “Did you ask him?”

  Katrina slid her arms around Nikolai’s neck and kissed him deeply, welcoming her husband home.

  Nikolai allowed himself to forget about everything except her touch for a moment and, when the kiss broke, he nodded. “What?” he asked in reply to Katrina’s expectant look. “I tendered your invitation. I told you it wasn’t likely he would accept.”

  Katrina sighed and scolded him in a mutter of her newly acquired Italian before she spoke again. “Send me there,” she demanded. “I know you. You didn’t even ask. You said something like ‘come visit’, didn’t you?”

  Nikolai looked guilty and didn’t need to answer.

  “Honestly, Nik, you and your ‘doing without asking’ thing! Now send me there. Kyle will send me back.”

  “Damned right he will,” Nikolai said with a scowl, gesturing at his wife reluctantly.

  Nikolai had made Katrina immortal when they’d married, but thankfully he hadn’t made her a vampire or given her any ethereal powers. If he had, she’d be an even bigger force to be reckoned with.

  Kyle smiled as his sanctuary was breached for the second time in less than an hour, and this time by a presence that was more human than ethereal. Immortal, yes, but human. Truly, one of the rarer of her kind. There were very few immortal humans, and Katrina was one of them.

  “I’m sorry for Nik’s likely rudeness,” Katrina said as she appeared in Kyle’s formal dining room. “And for mine, appearing unannounced like this, but you can’t say you didn’t expect me.”

  Kyle held up a hand as he continued gazing at the flames in the hearth at the end of the room. “He was not rude,” he replied. He looked up at Katrina. “Well, not as rude as the Destrati have been known to be in the past. Your influence, I am sure.”

  Katrina blushed - an attractive feature vampires were incapable of — and stifled a giggle. “He’s much better, really,” she said, taking a step towards the very dangerous and formidable Kailkiril’ron. Kyle was known by many names, and though he preferred “Kyle Carillron” these days, he was known in legend among the vampire clans as “Kail the Betrayer”.

  She crossed the room slowly, giving him time to adjust to her presence. For everything he was to everyone else, he’d never been anything but kind, gentle and warm to her. But she didn’t know how she hadn’t felt the danger in his presence before, when she was still human.

  “Because then you were under my protection,” Kyle answered her thoughts aloud. He held her dark eyes. “Now you are not, and Nikolai sends you alone.”

  “I ... I asked him to,” Katrina said, though the defence in her tone didn’t quite cover the slight tremor that his thinly veiled warning involuntarily elicited. Though she knew rationally he had protected her before, she was certain he could harm her with a thought if he were so inclined. “Well . . . ‘asked’ insistently.”

  The corners of Kyle’s mouth twitched as he raised his glass, and Katrina knew she was responsible for his almost-smile. Kyle drained the glass and set it aside on the mantelpiece above the hearth.

  “I never really got the chance to thank you for what you did for us,” she continued. “And I don’t q
uite trust that Nik expressed it the way he should have.”

  “No thanks are necessary,” Kyle said.

  Katrina laid a hand on Kyle’s arm. He looked down at it and arched an eyebrow.

  “Please come,” she asked softly. “At least—” her eye caught the now empty glass, and she looked up at him meaningfully “—have a drink with us.”

  “You don’t have to provide for me,” Kyle said, wondering why the suggestion raised his ire. “I don’t drink from men, and I don’t want any of your willing blood slaves attending me.”

  “Don’t be disgusting,” Katrina said, scowling at him. “Clan Destrati doesn’t do that any more. Everyone has their means, and it isn’t as barbaric as you make it sound.”

  Katrina eyed him. Kyle was the epitome of tact, couth, civility and elegance. Something was bothering him if he was being anything but.

  “And I wasn’t offering any of that,” she continued, meeting his pale eyes. “Just . . . company. An evening with friends. Everyone needs that now and again.”

  Kyle regarded her with a raised brow.

  Katrina returned his look without flinching. She was serious. “If you don’t want to come with me, then send me back alone,” she said with a shrug. “Either way, I’m asking you to come and visit.”

  Kyle sighed. “I’m afraid I’m not very social, tonight or any night,” he replied.

  “Maybe that’s because you haven’t had anyone to socialize with,” Katrina said, giving his arm a little shake. “Please? If you don’t like the company you can leave any time you want and we won’t question or pester, I promise. Please, Kyle? It’s been months since we’ve seen you, and I can’t bear the thought of you sitting here alone. We’re not your enemies any more, though to hear Nikolai tell it, we never really should have been. The Destrati, I mean. No doubt you’ve done your share to alienate the rest of the clans.”

  Kyle threw his head back and laughed at her last half-teasing statement, then looked down at her with a smile. No one ever teased him. No one had the gall to. “My lady, I doubt in the whole of your existence that you have ever uttered so gross an understatement as that,” he replied. “Though, as I cannot bear the thought of your very human worry over my happiness, I will accompany you on your return home and ‘at least have a drink’ with you.”

  Katrina smiled. “I’m ready when you are.”

  Within moments, they vanished together, materializing on a moonlit veranda where Nikolai stood next to a tabletop, filling three glasses.

  Katrina had been right.

  The company had been a welcome change, and the conversation had been more interesting than he’d considered it might be. As with the hunt, one also became bored with seeing paths and futures and with hearing the thoughts of others.

  Though far from omnipotent, Kyle knew a great deal about a great many things - so much, in fact, that he sometimes forgot all he knew and understood until he had cause to remember it. What he didn’t know immediately, he could easily learn through various means, but he tried to avoid infringing on the free will and privacy of others.

  It was only polite; something many individuals, both ethereal and mortal, could do well to remember.

  Nikolai had gone to oversee an issue in the Council chambers, though Katrina stayed behind to entertain their “guest”.

  “If the queen is needed . . .” Kyle said, offering Katrina a low bow.

  Katrina blushed. “Stop that,” she said nervously. “I don’t feel like much of a queen, to be honest. I mean, just last year I was an American grad student on a spring break trip to London. Now I’m the wife . . . wife ... of a gorgeous Russian guy who, as far as my mother knows, is some kind of banker, though Mom is thoroughly convinced Nik is part of the Mafia, running guns or drugs or something. Getting her to accept that he’s not only not any of those, but only a couple hundred years old and immortal - and oh, yeah, I am too, thanks to him - is hard enough without throwing some kind of pseudo-royalty into it.”

  Kyle was impressed. “My lady is displeased?”

  Was that disdain she heard in his question? If it was, she ignored it. “No, not really,” Katrina sighed. She turned, resting her hands on the balustrade as she looked out into the dark garden lit only by the three-quarter moon. “It just . . . gets a little hard sometimes, you know? And these people . . . um . . . well, they’re not people, really, but they are ...” Katrina put her face in her hands and sighed again.

  Kyle waited a moment for her to collect her emotions. When she looked up at him, he returned her look just as frankly. He was so calm and collected all the time. Nothing seemed to bother him.

  “Now, now,” Kyle said softly. “Do not attempt to pry into my thoughts, my lady. You’ve learned much from Nikolai, but some things aren’t for your knowledge. Not even if I were Destrati. Besides, it’s impolite to enter without an invitation, and that doesn’t extend solely to this realm.”

  “Who was she?” Katrina asked.

  Kyle leaned forwards and pushed himself up from his chair.

  She placed a quick hand on his arm as he began to bow and she tried not to flinch at the glare he gave her. “Tell me,” she insisted, cutting off any farewell he’d been about to make. “Yes, I’ve learned a lot from Nik, but no one needs any kind of special reading ability to see that you’re upset over something. That so doesn’t mesh with everything I’ve been told about you,”

  “Perhaps what you’ve been told about me is not only the truth, but how it should be. Now, release me, Katrina,” Kyle ordered.

  Katrina ignored the warning in his tone and shook her head. “Uh-uh,” she denied vocally. “Squirm all you want. Go ‘poof if you want to; it will just prove you’re a wuss.”

  “ ‘Wuss’?” Kyle echoed.

  “American slang for ‘wimp’,” Katrina clarified. “Coward, loser, chicken—”

  “All right, I understand,” Kyle said wryly. “I won’t go ‘poof. And the correct term is ‘shift’, not ‘poof.”

  “Whatever,” Katrina said, smiling up at him. She removed the gentle, restraining hand on his arm and sat back in her seat. “You’re really tall. I thought Nik was tall, but you have him beat. But you’re not big. Nik has muscles—”

  “Please tell me I’m not being subjected to this to fulfil some strange comparison fantasy of yours,” Kyle cut her off as he returned to the chair he’d been occupying. He reached for his glass. “Is Nikolai lacking in some way?”

  Katrina shook her head.

  “You’re alone, and I know how lonely it gets,” she said. “I mean, it’s been less than a year for me, being . . . not like everyone else. Most days I’m OK with it, especially if Nik is around, but sometimes being ‘alone’ gets to me, even if I am something of a queen.”

  “I wouldn’t downplay the importance of your role here, Katrina. You’d hurt Nikolai’s feelings, not to mention those of the others,” he said gently. “You’re not ‘something of a queen’. You are the queen of Clan Destrati, wife of Sovereign Nikolai Peityr. It pleases me to see that he hasn’t gone the way of Dominic by having you sit as his right hand on the Council.”

  Katrina lowered her eyes and shook her head. “I thought everyone should get used to me being around before I try to change the way they govern themselves. But Nikolai is gone so often, attending things like that, and I can’t help but feel lost and alone.”

  She looked back up at Kyle and shrugged a little, chagrined. “Though I’m sure that sounds pathetic, coming from me, considering how long . . . How long have you been alone?”

  “I do not wish to have this discussion,” Kyle said as he poured himself another glass of what Nikolai had informed him was goat’s blood obtained from a local butcher. It certainly had the taste of livestock to it, and was unlike the cattle blood he was accustomed to.

  It would not sustain him at all. Unlike the others of his supposed ilk, he needed human blood to maintain his form and powers. “To live off those he betrayed his Master for.” That was the curse. Ironic
and fitting.

  Kyle often found a great deal of humour in irony.

  “Kyle.”

  Katrina’s voice recalled his attention.

  “Yes? I’m sorry, my lady. I beg your forgiveness. My mind was elsewhere for a moment.”

  Katrina smiled. “I know,” she said. “I asked you if there was anything else I could get for you, to make you more comfortable. You seem a little troubled.”

  “No, thank you, my lady,” Kyle said, regaining his composure. “I should go. It has been a pleasant evening, and I thank you for your company and hospitality.”

  “Please, stay until Nikolai returns,” she asked, putting her hand on his arm again. “He shouldn’t be much longer. Keep me company.”

  Kyle looked uncomfortable, but nodded. He was losing himself in thoughts of her again. Why? Was it because no one had touched him as familiarly as Katrina had tonight since—? And Katrina had asked who “she” was. It was rude to ignore a question, though it was also rude to ask inappropriate ones. Katrina’s question hadn’t been entirely improper, just . . . one he’d never thought anyone would ask.

  Four hundred years in the mortal plane and he still hadn’t managed to rid himself of the compulsion to answer direct questions asked of him. He tried to reason with himself, telling himself he didn’t have to reply to her, that curiosity was natural to humans. She was only being polite. He rationalized for a long moment, but he knew if he didn’t answer her, the question would weigh on him until he did.

  “Do you know what today is?” he asked softly.

  “It’s Thursday, the nineteenth,” Katrina replied, confused. “Why?”

  The nineteenth of March. Kyle’s heart lurched in his chest as he remembered carefully choosing the rose he’d delivered that evening. It had to be perfect. Nothing less would do. When he’d found the perfect one, he’d used his power to make it as flawless as she had been. He could have used his power to manifest one in its entirety, but then it wouldn’t be of this realm and would fade with the morning light. She deserved more.

  “La festa di San Giuseppe,” Kyle murmured. “The feast of Saint Joseph.”