Chapter One: Dane

A human can't kill a demon.  At the best, they can drive one back through a portal and seal it but  that would be after countless years of study and practise.  I haven't met any High Mages here in this time and place.  So this was just a normal human.   No, a human couldn't kill me but he could mess me up pretty bad with a blade of silver.  In this day and age of cheap blades of questionable metal alloy where in the world did this junkie get a Twice Blessed?  A silver blade blessed with holy water -- sterilized water infused with silver particles.

Follow up:

Then again, colloidal silver can be bought at any health food store.  A priest never need touch it.

I ducked backwards as the blade slashed at me again.  It was even worse.  It wasn't a blade - it was a fancy letter opener.  That's why I was bleeding so badly and why I wasn't healing quickly.  It had to be high silver content.

"Die, die, die, die..."  My attacker was just screaming at over and over again.

I would have just put him down as one of the local lunatics that had gotten a bad batch of whatever his poison of choice was except his eyes followed the movements of my wings.  Once, maybe twice would have been a coincidence but he flinched when I extended my wings Wide.  He could see me for the High Pavor Nocturnus that I was.  That was unfortunate for him. Even more so for me.

I couldn't kill him.  It would be easy to reap him from this existence but then I might as well set off fireworks proclaiming for all to see where I was.  The Lord Death could tell which of his reapers was were and who they had taken.  It was a unique signature.

I staggered sideways off balance when I tried to move forward to disarm him.  I was bleeding pretty damn bad.  My shoulder was cut deep.    A normal blade wouldn't have done this much damage.  To a Twice Blessed, my demonic skin was like butter.  The man screamed and grabbed at his head.

"Get away from me.  Get away!  Get AWAY!"

I hissed and fell back against the bar.  The only reason I had some breathing room right now was that the letter opener was embedded in the latest wound...right in the bone of my forearm.  It burned ice cold.  At least with it stuck in me he couldn't attack me with it anymore.  Damn, it hurt.

"DANE!"

I was too much a professional to take my eyes off my enemy.  This was a battlefield.  He had chosen to make it one.  I tried to knock the blade out of me by swiping at it with the back of my hand.  The leather of the fingerless glove hit the handle and dug the point in deeper and sideways.  I winced and my wings fluttered in pain.

He screamed and rushed at me again his hands curled into claws.  I was stronger than him.  I clenched my jaw together and wrapped my palm around the hilt.  It felt like my flesh was being seared from my hand.  My own body convulsed as I wrenched the blade out.  He hit me with the full weight of his body and we crashed back into the entry way.  I threw the letter opener behind the bar as I was rammed back first into the dark panelling of the hall.

I could finally hear sirens approaching out in the street.  Enough of this.    Now that the silver wasn't burning my bones so hard and sapping my strength I quit playing human.  I reached out and caught his shoulders, dragging him forward and pulling him down while bringing my knee up at the same time.  I hit him square in the sternum.  My sensitive hearing heard the crack of a broken bone.  Shit...too hard.

My blood running down my arm made my grip slip.  The bastard wasn't going down.  Whatever the hell was coursing through his veins was blocking the pain.  His hand came up around the back of neck and wrenching at my hair.  My shoulder screamed in agony as he shoved his own arm hard against my wound then hot pain ripped through my side.  The black of his pupil took up almost all his eye.  He was not going to stop until I stopped him.

"DANE!"  And I had to do it before someone else got involved.

I grimaced as the pain in my side hit me again.  He had another knife.  This time it wasn't sliver and it wasn't blessed.  It hurt but it didn't burn.  I could feel the blood slowing already as it seeped through my shirt and down my side.  He stabbed me again driving it upwards into my stomach.  He cut something vital.

If he could see through my veil of shadows, I'd let him see the whole thing.  My fangs extended of their own free will, mere centimetres from his eyes.  Those caught his attention.  He started screaming and twisted backwards to get away from me.  I punched him in the face.  This time the snap of bone was satisfying when I broke his nose.  I jerked the blade out of my stomach then whipped around on my heel giving him a round house kick to the head.  This time the bastard staggered and I made sure my trailing edge of my wing slapped at him hard.  The second blow sent him reeling backwards and he crashed back first through the club's doors.  I followed hard on his heels and made sure that he bounced down the three steps to the pavement.  He landed in the slush of the melting March snow but fought to get back to his feet.  I leapt from the top of the stairs and landed beside him and gave him a kick to the face.  He quit moving.

He wasn't dead.  I knew dead and he was finally unconscious.  His body steamed in the late February slush pile.  His breath made puffy cotton balls in the air.

I didn't kill him.  Which was a damned good thing because if I did, the minions tracking me for Usurper would be able to zero in on my location and the shape I was in left little hope of evading or fighting them off.

I reached out for the railing that ran down the middle of the stairs and hissed as another shot of burning pain ripped up my nerves to my head.  I didn't even feel myself go down. A hand cradled the back of my head preventing it from slamming onto the cold concrete.  I blinked up at Frank the owner of the club as he eased me back against him..

"He fucked you up, boy."  I began shivering and it wasn't from the cold.

"Anyone else hurt?"

"You stopped him before he could get too freaky in there.  Your Peri's fine..."  My head twitched away from my cut shoulder.  "You're not though, boy.  If I didn't know better, I'd say you got silver poisoning."

My teeth began chatter.

"Lose the fangs or you'll chip'em."  Frank brought his hand under my jaw and forced my mouth closed.

The sirens of the cops were coming closer and the night was lit up with the strobes of the approaching cars.  It was just typical that the cops and EMS arrived just a hair too late for this part of town.  I couldn't blame them.  Just six months ago EMS was responding to an emergency and someone stole the ambulance while they were getting the victim out of the apartment building.  It was discovered in the river - minus anything that could be used as drugs or sold off to get drugs.

"Fangs, boy.  Can you hear me?  Get rid of your fangs."  Frank hissed into my ear.

If this was a trendy hot spot, I had no doubt the boys in blue would have come before I had to get too physical.  As this was, a gay strip club in an artsy district - read old industrial area being revitalized-if there were just a few stop lights that couldn't be run, it was fine.  The whole area was rather hoist by their own petard.  The old vs the new and slowly the new was taking over while everyone else watched to see what the outcome was.

"Collector, don't let Peri see you like this."

That brought my attention sharply back to the dangerous situation at hand.  My jaw was still trying to shatter as Frank held it closed.  It took more concentration than it should have to retract my fangs.  I was panting hard.  I should be cold.  Silver is a cold burn but it felt like I was burning up.  My shoulder wound pulsed hot with agony but my forearm was a searing ache.  I think the tip of the letter opener snapped off and was embedded in my radius.

I convulsed in Frank's arms.  "Shit...Collector...don't you..."

My vision turned into blinding flashes of red and blue light.  I convulsed again this time ramming the back of my head against Frank's forehead.  I had to get that piece of silver out of me.  If my wound healed over it, I would be useless to Lord Mercy.  I would be helpless against any of the low level demons the Usurper sent my way.  It would effectively hobble my strength and power once it blended with me.  I would be silver tainted.

"What's going on here!"  An authoritarian voice rang out  from the cruisers as I hit the cement step with my shoulder.  I convulsed again even though I was trying with all my might to get my hand over my still bleeding forearm.

"Dane!"   Peri's cry of concern ripped at me then the blinding strobe was blocked as wings as large as mine but whiter than supernatural means filled my vision.  Hair close cropped and sprayed with silver glitter pressed against the side of my face.   My pale angel in white wings, white patent leather thigh high boots with chunky heels and a small white glittery thong leaned over me.  It was still late winter and someone was going to notice that the white bondage angel stripper wasn't air and wasn't blowing warm breath clouds into the cold air.

My black t-shirt proclaiming the Lusty Satyr was cut and blood soaked.  My blood was everywhere.  On the step.  On Frank.   Peri leaned into me.

"Don't....you'll get dirty."

"We've been through this before, Dane.  You don't get to tell me what I can or can not do."  Peri dropped to his knees both of his hands on my forearm.

"Don't touch it!"  Frank wrapped an arm around my shoulders pulling me back to his chest.  "It's silver poisoning."

"You seem to forget whom you are talking to."  Oh Lord, Peri was pissed.  He only started using proper English when he was spitting mad but in mixed company, meaning humans were present.   I shuddered again.  Peri's grip on my forearm tightened and this time Frank was prepared for my little head rattle.

I've always found it highly stimulating when Peri does his thing.  This wasn't the case at this time.  He closed his eyes and pulled my forearm out to extend it fully palm facing upwards.  It didn't matter that my arm was twitching, he was not letting go.  The noise around me and the flashing lights were disorienting me even more.  Peri opened his eyes and whole of them had turned a churning mix of greys from the darkest to something that was almost like mercury. Peri might seem somewhat less than a match for me physically and other demonic entities might laugh when Peri pulls on the white wings - a polar opposite to my actual ones; but it is a deadly mistake to disregard his heritage.  Of all the demon bloods, only the Light Fey can manipulate silver.  It is as if they were immune to it.

Frank pinned my jaw closed as Peri reached into my wound.  I wish I could say that I was able to hold a stoic demeanour.  Peri's flesh began to glow as he brushed his fingers into the meat of my arm.  Where the silver left a cold burn, Peri was searing me with heat.  My wings battered at Frank and it took all his strength to hold me.  I knew the exact moment Peri touched the fragment.  It was as if a bolt of white lightening ripped through the marrow of my bones.  My world exploded in a flash of light.

A burning touch drew a spell on my forehead then the touch of lips cooled the glyphs and set the enchantment.

"Human Semblance."  Peri's voice sounded so far away.  "I thought nothing like this was supposed to happen?"

"If he had intent to harm the barrier would never have let him up the stairs.  It was only when the Messenger appeared..."

"Messenger?  I thought you said this place was protected.  I thought you said you had the wicca bless the property.  I thought you said it was a portal free zone.  The only reason we're here at all is that Dane feels he owes you a debt and you said you'd make it safe for him."

"I did all that.  It looks like I need to renew it.  It lasted less than a year."  Frank returned evenly.

Franklin was an older demon.  His intermingling with the humans over decades had given him better survival skills than most.  One does not argue with a pissed off Fey.  There is a reason that they and they alone can live exclusively in the light.  Besides being able to blur the boundaries between the veils, or the demonic and human and spiritual worlds the Fey were silversmiths.  They could take a single ounce of silver and fashion into a deadly weapon and use it while offending demon was still heaping verbal insults. The last insult from their lips would be their last word ever.  Now that I knew how painful and searing a silver shard could be, I didn't want to imaging a spider's web line of silver garrotting a neck or a silver needle piercing an eye or ear drum.

Peri was my Fey of an angel who danced half naked for horny desperate men on a stage that had seen far better dance because I asked him to.  He was beautiful to my eyes.  Beautiful and delicate looking.  The lust that Peri drew from the customers this one night a week performance filled the club to the rafters.

"You don't skimp on charms, Frank.  You pay cheap witches, you get cheap witches.  I'll get you in touch with some competent warlocks."

"I'd appreciate it."

Frank was not stupid. He didn't need to heed my warning or maybe I should say caution about Peri.  Frank knew how to handle him.  He was an incubus after all.  Contraire to what Usurper had Incubus do to me, they are not rapists.  They are the charmers of the demon world.  Their conquests are willing and more than appreciative during and after.  Incubus get the sexual energy they need to survive and the filthy lucre to flourish in the human world.  Dancing around the mercurial mood of a Fey was nothing to him.  Still dancing lightly in a mine field could ended up with some limbs missing.

"As it is Dane is injured and the humans saw it.  He's going to have to go with EMS and they are going to treat his wounds like a human and when he finally gets home tonight I'm going to have to rip all the stitches out and reopen this cuts so he can heal without scars."

I opened my eyes.  Whatever else Peri was going to say was abandoned as he lay a hand on my chest.  "I can't even leave you standing in the doorway and you get into trouble..."

"Nobody else hurt?"

"No, baby...just you."

As if on cue the cops called up to us as they looked over at downed crazy man.  "You there.  Get some clothes on or get back inside the building.  You are in violation of at least four laws I can count."

"Any more silver anywhere?"

"You got it out."  The ice burn was gone and I was left with weakness.  If a portal to hell opened beside me now, a Messenger could drag me off with little to no resistance.  If Peri suspected how bad I really was, there was no way to keep these humans who were just doing their jobs from knowing about us.  Frank might be able to re-arrange or blur memories but I didn't.  I used to be the Collector of souls.  Those that saw me, never lived much longer passed that meeting.  The Fey...well human's have known about the Fey for centuries.

Still there are Fey and there is MY Fey.   "Go back inside, babe...it's a little to cool to be out here in just feathers and a smile."

He opened his mouth for a moment but I brought my forearm forward slightly and used my thumb to brush at the cut slightly.  The bone was already covered and the meat was knitting together before our eyes.  I healed from the inside out.  Layer upon layer until there was nothing but smooth flesh.  After all I damage I had taken at the hands of humans in wars as I reaped the battlefields or even from some souls loved one willing to take on death's harbinger to stay beside them; I should be nothing but a network of scars.  I would heal that way again that is if I could get away without getting stitches.  . It was still far too slow for my regular healing.

The flashlight from the cop blazed in my face then to the blood still seeping out of my forearm then they noticed the blood on the shirt.  A call went out for ambulance attendants to get their asses over to me.  I shuttered my eyes to keep the annoyance off my face.  It had been a long shot that I would be ignored.

Peri's fingers caressed the swell of my cheek.  I had forgotten the crazy man had sliced me there too.  "Tell me that you're going to be okay, Dane and make me believe it."

I arched an eyebrow and let my voice mimic my favorite movie.  "It's just a flesh wound."

Peri rolled his eyes.  After watching "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" for the twenty-first time together on the couch he told me that he was going to snap it in two if he ever heard it on in his presence.  Since then, I've been quoting it.  "I'll wait for you at home."

"Take a cab.  I don't want you walking home by yourself."  I heard the paramedics clattering up the steps masked behind Peri's large feathered wings.

If a Messenger had gotten through Frank's wards then it was a fact that the Usurper knew exactly where I was.  He would use whatever means necessary to achieve his goals and I had mistakenly allowed...no, being with Peri wasn't a mistake; but it wasn't the smartest move.  The Usurper couldn't break me but now that I friends and lovers, they were in danger just by association.

"I'll be fine."

"Take a cab, Peri."  He made a face at me which I couldn't tell if it was acquiesce or denial.

And then he cut off any argument I was going to make by leaning over, catching my jaw and planting an open mouth kiss on my lips.

I didn't think he would give me a shot of elixir right here on the steps of "The Sons of Satyr" strip club.  His lips touched mine and he flicked his tongue at my lips.  I opened my mouth and he slipped inside and opened his natural innate energy to me.  I didn't draw it in.  You do that, you get a headache like a brain freeze from an ice cold slushie except it's your whole body and it leaves you totally incapacitated for at least an hour.  I'd learned that I just have to let it trickle into me.

I had to break it off.  My body was craving more.  The remnants of silver poisoning was still slowing my healing but it would look strange if the paramedics got to me and there wasn't a wound or bruise on me, especially with all the blood on me, the steps and in the club.  Also there was another side effect from drinking elixir from the source.  Not that I didn't want to but hot monkey sex was usually the currency my little Periwinkle wanted after filling my tank.  Me with a hard on at the police station was not a good thing, especially if I ended up in holding which was a possibility because the human attacker wasn't moving.

"Thanks for the sugar, babe."

How the hell does a demon get lucky enough to hook and land another immortal creature - a Fey-- an elemental of earth and light?  Before Peri and I shacked up, I had to hunt down otherworldly creatures to get enough of the essential stuff for my tincture  -- my elixir of life.  I count myself lucky that I found him and that he even looked twice at me.  Once you've been the right Hand of Death, you are forever marked.  My natural aura is the deepest black that swallows all light.  However when I feed from Peri, I turn a soft fog - a dove grey.  That is as close to the Light as I am every going to get.

"I'll wait up for you, Dane."

"Take a cab, my Periwinkle.  The Night has a thousand eyes."  I reached out and pulled a bill from his thong.  A twenty.  I frowned. Who the hell was shoving twenties down my man's crotch?  "I'll catch cab back as soon as I get let go."

I angled my head up and waited for him to press his lips to mine in a chaste kiss.  He gave me my name -- Dane.  I think he named me after a dog breed he liked but he wouldn't call me Reaper or Collector because that was my 'demon' moniker.  I've been nameless in the past but that didn't really work in the human world.  I could live with the name of Dane.

The young officer had come up the steps his eyes watching Peri's perfect pale globes framed by large white wings disappear back through the club door.  There was a roar from the crowd as the star reappeared.   The officer shook his head and clicked his tongue.  "And here I am liking girls.  Gees, Dane, you get yourself all sliced up again?"

Officer Kennedy came up beside his partner and pointed the flashlight down at my arm but his eyes were looking at the last of Peri as he disappeared back to the club.  "How the hell did you rate that?"

"Good clean living."  Kennedy gestured for me to turn my arm over.

"Just a flesh wound but it bled a lot.  I took the knife away from him." I pointed down at my feet.  The switchblade was sticky with blood.

"He's fucked up royally.  You know who that is?"  The flashlight moved up to my shoulder.  Kennedy hissed. "Damn, you're fucked pretty bad."

"Never saw him before.  He's on something.  He wouldn't go down. I think I might have broken some ribs and his nose just to get him out of the club."

"What the hell happened?"

"He just came in, ordered a beer and ogled the guys then he stared screaming at shadows and acting weird.  I asked him to leave and he pulled the knife and cut me."

"You know we're going to have to take you in..."

"I was expecting it."

"Let's get you to the paramedics and see if you got to get stitches."

Damn.  This was going to hurt.