A Demon's Gifts: Vice College For Young Demons: Year Two Read online

  Curious, I did what he suggested, only to watch the card fade into the grey floor of this strange place, visible only by a slightly darkened patch on the floor.

  There was a shuffling in the shadows, and several of them seemed to converge on me at once.

  “Unfortunately, you can’t hear their reaction,” Enzo admitted. “But I can, and it’s safe to say that my brothers-in-mating don’t trust the purity of my intentions.” He held out a hand to me with a courtly bow. “Come with me, just for a weekend, pretty darling,” he coaxed. “I’m sure you want to tell me why you’re the first person to have a mate in hundreds of years, and why, instead of just one or two, you have seven. After all, we can hardly have a civilised conversation without tea, and the shadow realm is woefully bereft of beverages.”

  I looked at him, wondering how much of his crazy was real. “I’ll come with you if you tell me you won’t hurt me or them.”

  I knew none of my other mates would approve of me doing this on my own, but I’d spent almost a year looking for this man, and he had been chosen for me. I owed it to all of us to see whether he was as irredeemable as Blaze thought.

  “I vow it to the Strange God, you shall not come to harm by my hand this weekend, and neither shall your other suitors,” he said sincerely.

  I stared in his eyes for a second, trying to get a read on him but drawing a blank. “This still seems like a bad idea…” I mumbled. “They’ll worry about me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yes, but they’re alive to do the worrying. And everyone in my business knows living is a privilege not a right.”

  I placed my hand in his, his skin shockingly warm against the coldness of this strange world.

  The world twisted. Sliding into shadow and back again felt like being pulled into a thin strand of spaghetti and then expanding slowly outwards. I hated the feeling so much that I closed my eyes, only to open them in shock when I felt a finger stroke the shell of my ear.

  The room we were in was dimly lit, but lavishly decorated. It was clearly some kind of attic apartment, furnished with velvet sofas and leather armchairs. A huge fireplace took up most of one wall, the carved black marble mantlepiece surrounding a cheerful and crackling fire. But what really demanded my attention was the giant pile of treasure sitting in the middle of the floor.

  “I feel like I’ve walked into a dragon’s lair,” I whispered, captivated by the piles of gold.

  Enzo chuckled. “But you know this dragon isn’t going to eat you.” He waved a hand out. “Welcome to my Paris abode. Clothes are already waiting for you in the bathroom.”

  “Clothes?”

  He looked at my uniform in disdain. “You can wear that if you like, but you might not sleep well in it.”

  I flushed with embarrassment and wandered over to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. The whole room was tiled with gold veined, black marble and was lit just as dimly as the rest of the apartment. It made sense for a man with a gift for manipulating darkness to like it, but it still made it hard for everyone else to see.

  On a hanger on the back of the door was the softest set of flannel pyjamas I’d ever touched. I fingered the silk ribbons stitched around the cuffs, wondering how much something like this cost. It didn’t look like I’d ever find out because, although the tags were still inside, the price had been cut off. They were black – something that was beginning to feel like a bit of a theme with Enzo – and fit me like a glove. I hesitated once I was changed, not sure what I would find when I opened the door. I faffed around with folding my uniform for a few minutes before stopping myself.

  “You got yourself here, Lilith,” I whispered to myself. “Don’t chicken out now.”

  I turned the key in the lock and moved back into the main room, quietly leaving my clothes on a chair. Enzo was reclining over a wingback chair in front of the fire, wearing fluffy slippers, of all things.

  “Tea?” he asked, holding out a teapot in offering.

  I nodded, approaching him and wondering where I should sit. His was the only chair nearby, his pile of treasure taking up any space I could’ve sat in. There was a single cushion on the treasure, I noticed as a tendril of shadow passed me a teacup and saucer.

  “Yes, that’s your spot.” Enzo beamed as though the idea was his best one yet. “You see, it’s only right to put the treasure all together.” His eyes darkened, as he raked them over my body. “Or there’s always space on my lap.”

  My eyes crossed between the two, and eventually I settled for the cushion. My inner feminist growled at the idea of being put on display like a pretty vase, but it seemed like the safest option when the alternative was sitting on an assassin’s lap.

  As soon as I sat down and took a sip of tea he started staring at me intently, and I got the impression I had failed some kind of test.

  “So, you’re still afraid of me despite my making a vow not to harm you.” He sighed. “That’s inconvenient, but not unexpected.”

  I sipped my tea quietly, but instead of feeling pressured to fill the silence as most people would be, he just silently smiled at me until the cup was empty.

  “You’re from Gluttony,” I began, hoping to lure him into divulging more about himself.

  “Perhaps I am,” he agreed. “Or, perhaps I am not. And maybe what matters most is how you come to know such a fact that may or may not be true.” He spoke in unhelpful riddles whilst lifting the teapot in offering. “More tea?”

  I held my cup out and let him pour me some more.

  “I know because I was given a vision by the Strange God,” I admitted, because at least one of us had to be honest for this conversation to go anywhere. “He told me I would have seven mates, one from each caste, and if I hadn’t met them all by the solstice I would die. You were the only one I hadn’t found, so by process of elimination, that makes you a Gluttony.”

  “Interesting. And what else did our illustrious benefactor tell you?” he asked, as another tendril of darkness stirred two tiny spoons of sugar into his cup.

  “He said that I was meant to stop a certain group of people looking to seize power. He told me I would need allies, but not much else.”

  “Typical.” Enzo shook his head, smiling ruefully. “Trying to get a straight answer out of him never goes well, and yet people still blindly trust his judgement.”

  “You sound as if you’ve met him before.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m not the only being wandering the shadow realm. The only umbrakinetic, yes, but there are worse things than me in the world.” He took a sip of his tea, replaced the cup in the saucer and reached into a shadow by his side, pulling out a pile of folders. “It’s getting late and I have messy problems to fix for spoilt rich brats.” He flicked open the first folder. “Your room is through that door. The alarm is already set, and I await the pleasure of your company in the morning. You will find all the clothes in the wardrobe are in your size.”

  I stood but hesitated, looking back at him. “You don’t want to know anything else about me or my other mates?”

  He sighed, flicking through a thick file on a rather rotund man with an interesting moustache. “I already know all of that,” he brushed aside my question and then proceeded to recite from memory. “Lilith Carazor, Lust-Succubus, twenty-one years old with gifts in odynokinesis and pathokinesis. Daughter of Astoria Baxion, Pride-Narcissist, and Arnold Carazor, Sloth-Indifference. Your favourite food is tinned peaches in syrup, your favourite colour is turquoise but the most common colour in your wardrobe is dark blue. You were born on the twenty-first of June, but your mother forbade you from having birthday celebrations. She is also the reason you never learned demonish as a child, hence the reason we are in Paris, you speak French as well as you do English. Partially because your father’s parents live in France, but also because your mother is featured in the fashion week every year and forced you to attend.”

  I gaped at him.

  “Shall we go over the results of your ballet exams and your school absence reports, or have I proven my point?”

  “How did you find all of that out?”

  “There are people out there who know how to find evidence of you picking your nose in preschool,” he informed me, dryly. “A basic background check is hardly rocket science. Well, I admit, Krossian had friends who hide his sneaky activities well, and Abraxon had the best security I’ve ever seen, but I was up to the challenge.”

  “Hardly fair then, that I know nothing about you.”

  “You know my name, how I take my tea, the colour of my best china and my profession,” he retorted. “I’m sure you’ve also noticed my favourite colour. Hardly nothing.”

  I huffed out a small breath and hovered for a second before moving over to the door he’d indicated. “Goodnight,” I whispered.

  “Sweet dreams, Pretty Darling.” He didn’t even look up.

  I closed and locked the door behind me, but his chuckle still followed me through the wood.

  The bedroom was just as luxurious as the rest of the apartment had been and decorated in black once again. I was seriously getting sick of all the black, but the bed looked so large, soft and inviting that I couldn’t help falling asleep without even pulling the satin covers over myself.

  Chapter 3

  Just as he’d promised, the alarm did go off in the morning, and it took me a few minutes to figure out how to turn the complicated little box off. It was one of those sleek modern things where the manufacturers had used simplicity as an excuse to cover up the fact that they’d forgotten to label any of the buttons. When I eventually silenced the thing, I took a second just to look around the room, remembering where I was. There was a huge window looking out into the city on one side of the bed, and I pattered over to it, noticing that the view overlooked the Eiff
el Tower.

  How much had this place cost him, I wondered. Did killing people really pay that well?

  I admired the view a little longer, watching the people go past below me for almost ten minutes before I braved the wardrobe.

  I should have known almost everything inside would be black. There were outfits for every occasion, tags removed so I couldn’t match a price to the stunning glittering cocktail dress, or the Levi jeans in every cut. I settled for a tea dress, annoyed to find that it fit me perfectly and was softer and more comfortable than anything I’d ever owned. He really did know everything about me, and it irked me that, despite what he said, I knew nothing about him. I picked out some short ankle-boots to go with it and brushed my hair in the mirror before I carefully ventured back to the treasure room.

  Mournful, violin music was playing from somewhere in the apartment, but I ignored it in favour of using the bathroom. There was a brand-new toothbrush by the sink, still in the packaging, and I assumed it was mine. I used it while trying not to think about the fact that I was even using a tube of my preferred toothpaste.

  When I eventually emerged, I hunted down the source of the music, carefully peeking around doors until I discovered a large, open music room, with light pouring down from a skylight onto Enzo’s blonde hair.

  He played the violin masterfully, each note a piercing lament that I couldn’t quite understand and wasn’t quite sure that I wanted to. I hovered in the doorway, watching him play with his back to me, his wiry muscles bunching underneath his black silk shirt with each motion of the bow. If I stripped away the fear that I felt around him, he was a magnificent man to look at. He had a face like a cruel angel, and a body that moved with the sensual grace of some kind of cat. Like most items in this place, his instrument was a finely wrought piece of art, the wood carved with scrollwork that spoke of a different time when people dedicated themselves to become masters of a single craft.

  When he put the violin down, gently placing it on a stand and wiping down the wood with a dust cloth he turned straight towards me, enigmatic smile in place.

  “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice.

  “I thought we’d take breakfast out,” he continued. “I know a nice little café down by the Champ De Mars.”

  I reached up and touched my horns self-consciously. “Won’t the humans notice?”

  He smirked. “Let me take care of the humans.” I followed him like a lost puppy as he left the room. When we got back to the treasure room, he reached down into the pile and withdrew the choker he’d given me before. “Do you not like this?” he asked. “It would look stunning with that dress.”

  “It’s too expensive,” I argued. “That sort of thing belongs in a display case.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I liberated it from a display case where it had languished for years.” He disappeared and reappeared again behind me, using the shadow realm as though it was as easy as breathing. “Hold your hair up.”

  It took me a second to remind myself not to argue with an assassin whose hands were so close to my skin, and he chuckled under his breath at the long pause before I complied. It frustrated me that he found my caution worthy of humour, but I bit my tongue. His fingers stroked the sides of my neck as he strung the gems around my throat. When he pulled away, stroking my hair back into place, he seemed to think for a second before grabbing a coat from the wall. Printed on the back was writing that said, ‘Umbra Movie Productions and Casting’.

  “You’re going to pretend I’m an extra in a film,” I whispered.

  “Humans won’t question it. After all, people don’t have horns, do they?” He winked at me. “The door to the apartment is there.” He pointed to a door I hadn’t explored yet. “I don’t need to use it, but should you ever need to.” He pulled a single silver key from his pocket and offered it to me. “I would only ask that you never bring anyone else here.”

  I nodded, confused at this change of direction.

  Enzo handed me a light trench coat, helping me into it like a gentleman before offering me his arm. “Shall we?”

  I took a deep breath and took it, wincing at the sudden silence as he pulled me through the shadow realm. I closed my eyes once again, waiting until the uncomfortable sensation of teleporting in that realm passed to open them once more.

  Strangely enough, I enjoyed my day out in Paris with the assassin. He took me to a tiny little café for breakfast, then let me explore in a way I had never been able to when my mother had taken me before. The only moment when things took a slight turn was when a human tried to slip his hand into my bag on the crowded metro and Enzo noticed. The would-be thief yelped loudly and withdrew his hand from around my purse, only to find his fingertips had been shredded to the bone. There was an instant where he looked at me in horror, before he seemed to sense the sinister vibes from Enzo. He looked over my head at the assassin, then turned on his heel and fled. I raised an eyebrow, glaring over my shoulder at Enzo, who had the nerve to give me an innocent shrug before weaving us out of the crowd. Of course, by the time I remembered that I should be cowering in fear rather than glaring at him, he’d promptly distracted me by taking me out for dinner on a riverboat cruise where he surprised me with tickets to the ballet.

  And with his jacket, no one questioned my horns; I felt normal for the first time in months. And strangely, I even forgot for a brief time, that I was anything other than a girl exploring a city with a boy who wanted to give her pretty things.

  “You planned this in advance,” I accused, as we strode down a quiet Parisian street later in the evening.

  “I plan to steal all of your weekends,” he admitted, with an unrepentant smile. “The argument you had with the other blunder-heads just provided a good excuse to kidnap you for a short while.”

  “Every weekend?” I asked. “I have to study, you know.” I sighed as the mention of my other mates brought them to the forefront of my mind. “Aeron will hate this, and Blaze too.”

  “Not the others?” Enzo sounded uninterested, but his mating bond sparked with curiosity.

  I shook my head. “Jin goes with the flow,” I explained. “Kain is quite laid back as well, and Daron is logical enough to see the advantage of having you with us.” I stroked a finger along my metal daisy chain bracelet fondly. “Bane… Well it’s none of his damn business.”

  “That reeks of trouble in paradise,” Enzo smirked. “Problems with your rebel?”

  I shook my head. “He isn’t my rebel.” I rubbed subconsciously at the hollow feeling in my chest that came with speaking about Bane. “He’s decided that he won’t risk my life by mating me, but he leads me on sometimes… I don’t know what he would say about you. Sometimes he backs Aeron just because they’re brothers and Aeron and Blaze will see you as a threat.”

  He smirked. “Then they’re smart men. But, unlike your rebel, I’m not going to be noble and stay away from you.” He checked his Rolex. “Come, we best get you home before my promise to be good expires.”

  I glanced around us, taking in the atmosphere for the last time. “Okay.”