At the rear of the attic, he found Chira. Manacled to a wall with thick black chains, the N’Pathran demon still maintained her human façade. Voluptuous and short, she looked to be in her early thirties, which was a mere third of her true age. Barely conscious, stray locks of shoulder-length black hair draped over her bloodied face. Someone had recently beaten her, burned her, and inflicted a dozen or so small cuts. The injuries were all centered upon her face and neck. Spencer knew that Chira would regenerate within a matter of hours.
Spencer felt a mixed sense of relief and rage at the sight of her. After she had been kidnapped from their loft in Vancouver, he tracked her here. The search had taken him about two weeks. During that time, he had broken a few jaws - and quite a few laws - in the quest to rescue his true love. The authorities, both American and Canadian, were already after him. By tomorrow, Chira’s kidnappers would be too.
But none of that mattered right now.
He sized up the plain black manacles that bound her tiny wrists. Forged without a keyhole, each one was linked to a thick length of chain set into the wall behind her. From what little Chira had taught him about the occult, these chains were mystical and could only be broken by strong magic, a release phrase, or by the hands of whoever enchanted them.
“Wake up baby,” Spencer said as he knelt down and gently shook her left shoulder with his free hand. “I’m getting you out of here.”
Chira winced as she forced her swollen blue eyes open and looked over at him.
Before he had awakened her, Chira had been dreaming of how they had met, some three years ago. Back then, he was a homeless addict begging her for a dose of Demon Tears. Too broke to buy any more of the drug, Spencer had tracked down the source. What he learned was that the drug came from real demon tears: namely hers. She was one of the main suppliers for the Boston area and had been making good money doing so. Normally, Chira would have torn out Spencer’s heart and eaten it in front of his corpse. But instead, the despairing mortal made her feel something alien to her hell-spawned core – pity.
For reasons still unknown to her, Chira took Spencer off the streets and weaned him off the drug. During those first few weeks in her apartment, they fell in love. It was Spencer who talked her into leaving her lucrative “career.” In spite of the fact that her business partners were just as infernal as she was, Chira opted to take the chance. They kept on the move for most of their three-year relationship, pursued off-and-on by her former partners.
Upon returning to Boston, her captors immediately put her back to work making Demon Tears. Only this time, Chira was doing so for free and under outright torture. As they brutalized her, the she-demon’s tears freely poured.
But she never lost hope.
“I knew you’d come,” Chira grinned through cracked lips.
The sounds of approaching sirens were heard in the distance. Spencer was too thrilled to care. All that mattered was that Chira was safe and sound.
“I’d walk through Hell for you,” Spencer coughed, bothered by the fumes in the room.
“How do I get you out these chains?” Spencer asked.
“The nanny,” Chira licked her lips. “She has to utter the release phrase.”
“You mean the nanny I left dead in the kitchen?”
Chira eyed the mere Ruger in his hand and gave her lover a sad smile.
“Guns can’t kill demons for good, my love. Only magic or starvation can do that.”
Spencer found himself giggling.
“Between a clip-and-a-half of hollow-points and a rolling pin, I’d say that she’s down for good.”
Chira raised a blood-caked eyebrow at the mention of a “rolling pin” but decided to ask about it later. Tempschal was a Lingon demon, which made her stronger and tougher than most. Thus, many an occult drug dealer used them as sentries or bodyguards. Not only could they shapeshift (like Chira), Tempschal could regenerate from injuries very quickly. Odds were the she’d be up and around in a matter of –
Both Spencer and Chira jumped at the sounds of a downstairs door being kicked in.
“The cops,” Spencer muttered, his speech noticeably slurred as he looked down at his watch. “Think they can handle her?”
Chira started to reply but was cut off by the sounds of gunfire and screaming male cops. About ten seconds later, the slaughter downstairs ended with a loud crashing sound.
“Nope,” the she-demon sadly replied.
Spencer rose to his full height with a sadistic grin. Chira couldn’t see his face but noticed that he looked a bit … wobbly. Then she looked over at the lab and remembered the fumes in the air. While Demon Tears was a potent drug, alchemical enhancements were needed to make the initial “high” last longer and without killing human users. One of the side effects was an invisible cloud of drug-laced fumes. Her demonic blood protected her. But Spencer – former addict that he was – was especially vulnerable.
“Spencer? Are you okay?”
Spencer turned to face his true love and waved with his left palm in front of his eyes. He saw after-images of his hand and frowned.
“I’m high as motherfucker, ain’t I?”
“Oh God,” Chira muttered as she realized something else about the fumes: they were flammable.
Tempschal’s footsteps thundered up the stairs. Spencer defiantly raised the Ruger with a right-handed grip.
“Spencer! Don’t shoot!”
Spencer snorted and gave her a quick glance.
“Why not?!”
“The flammable fumes, love.” Chira replied insistently. “The flammable fumes.”
Spencer inhaled deeply … then frowned as he coughed. His drug-addled brain put two-and-two together just as Tempschal kicked open the attic door, her askew wig still on her head. Her gunshot wounds - both old and new - had closed. In her right hand was the blood-covered rolling pin. The guardian glared at Spencer with savage fantasies of retribution. He merely giggled at her as he aimed at her face.
“That wig really looks good on you!” Spencer taunted with downright euphoria.
Tempschal growled as she ripped off the wig with her left hand and tossed it away. Chira looked up at him with growing concern. A few more minutes in this room and the fumes might result in an overdose … if the Lingon didn’t kill him first.
“That gun won’t stop me,” Tempschal growled in her “old lady” voice.
“Nope,” Spencer chuckled as he tapped his nose with his free hand. “But the alchemical explosion just might.”
The sentry stopped and sniffed the air. Her rage turned into dread as she backed up a step.
“Let’s make a deal, you ugly old thing. Swap places with my lady fair -”
“You’re dead!” Tempschal yelled in her true voice, which was something deep, dark, and frightening to the ear.
Spencer confidently snickered before he continued.
“We gag you, of course. And nobody else dies. Or, we can play ‘Blow-the-drug-lab’ and end up in tiny bits.”
Tempschal eyed the manacles for a moment. The demon sentinel knew that her employers would kill her - slowly - if they came back to find their cash cow gone and her chained to a wall. Worse, this drug lab had been compromised. Odds were a surviving cop or two was outside calling for SWAT backup. Even if she killed this fool and got away with Chira, her employers would be less than happy about this fiasco.
It would almost be better to die.
“You’d kill her?” Tempschal skeptically asked, stalling for time to think