Page 21 of Legacy of Temptation

Logan rolled adecipulabetween his fingers as he peered through a doorway into a corner office. Inside, a dusty monstrosity of a desk dominated the room under the flickering light from a single dying bulb. “I can’t see them if they’re hiding.”

“Then draw them out.”

“No shit. You think I didn’t think of that? These bastards are resisting my pull.”

Mace swore under his breath. “I don’t work in Spirit Management. I fucking hate this evil soul shit. I should be out with Blade and Scotty, hunting a Soulshredder and turning it into a spirit foryouto catch. Why the hell did DART put me on this job?”

“Because you were already here in Boston screwing one of Dawn’s roommates. And you can sense spirits.”

“Which, again, does no good if I can’t see them.” Mace came up from behind Logan, his head swinging from side to side as he scanned the area for their targets. “I have the most useless superpower ever. You’re an immortal badass, and I’m your lame-ass sidekick.”

“Quit whining. You’re a sex demon. Your magic dick is your superpower.”

Mace barked out a laugh. Logan was screwing with him, but the truth was that despite the fact that their primary talents were meant for sex, Seminus demons were deadly motherfuckers with gifts that could heal…or kill.

An icy puff of air chilled the skin on the back of Logan’s neck. He spun around and came face to fucking face with a gaping maw full of fangs.

Fangs that were too solid, pulsing between near-transparency and partial-opacity.

Shedim demon.Shit.

“It’s regenerating!” he shouted to Mace as he dove to the floor. The Shedim snapped its jaws together where Logan’s head had been.

Son of a bitch, he hated these things. Shedims could grow new bodies three times in their thousand-year lifespans, becoming nine-foot-tall nightmares that could bite a man in half. Logan might be immortal, but like Limos’s hell stallion, he wasn’t immune to injury, pain, or having his head bitten off.

Suddenly, a snarl rumbled through the darkness, and the foul stench of hellhound breath filled the air. A streak of fur so black it absorbed what little light surrounded it slammed into the half-formed spirit and scattered it into a million pieces.

“Good boy, Cujo!” Logan shouted as the massive canine skidded to a halt short of colliding with the wall, his serrated claws ripping deep, steaming gouges in the floor tiles.

The demonic spirit reformed with a slurping, gurgling sound. It streaked toward Mace with a skull-shattering shriek. Logan hurled thedecipulaat the spirit, but the crystal sphere merely bounced off the bastard and rolled across the floor.

“It’s too fully formed for the soul trap!”

“No shit!” Mace launched sideways and kicked off a support beam into a mid-air flip. He came down in a powerful arc, slicing at the demon with his blade. The Shedim glided under the sword in an impossibly fast blur. Mace leaped backward. Too late. The creature’s claws raked his chest, shredding his leather bomber jacket. “Motherfu—”

Mace dodged another strike, this one aimed at his throat. Unlike Logan, Mace wasn’t immortal. Super strong, quick-healing, and long-lived, with a five-hundred-year lifespan, sure, but he’d bleed out almost as easily as a human if he caught a claw to the carotid.

Calling Cujo to his side, Logan charged up his soul gift and hurled himself across the space. Leaping into the air, he came down hard with a hammer-fist to the back of the demon’s thick neck. A surge of power punched down his arm, knocking the demon’s soul from its physical body. A furious scream exploded from the creature’s throat, fading away as its wet flesh and soft bones dropped to the floor in a quivering blob that Cujo snatched up between his powerful jaws.

The Shedim, now a wispy, inky abomination with crimson eyes, spun into a whirlwind of hate so palpable Logan felt it like a million lashes on his skin. The funnel’s tail whipped out, catching Mace in the jaw and sending him tumbling into an old desk. The funnel came at Logan, shrieking and growling, a million mouths with rows of teeth snapping at him.

A split second before the specter reached him, Logan hurled adecipulainto the core of the demonic tornado.

A burst of light exploded from the marble, and in a torturous slow-motion sequence, the shadowy spirit got sucked into the tiny ball. Screeching, it fought the vacuum, its claws dragging across the walls and floor. Finally, with the bulk of its form inside the trap, its claws wrapped around the sphere as it hung in the air until, with a click, the light shut off, and the marble, now swirling with black clouds, plinked to the tile.

“One down,” Logan said as Mace flopped back against the wall, one hand splayed across his bleeding chest.

“Great,” Mace breathed. “Where’s the other one?”

As if Mace’s question had summoned it, the remaining spirit shrieked from above and shot toward Logan. He wheeled hard and chucked another soul trap into the center of the wispy creature. It went the way of the first Shedim, fighting its fate until the end.

While Mace struggled to his feet, Logan retrieved thedecipulasand tucked them into his pocket to drop off at DART HQ.

“Come on,” Mace said through clenched teeth, one arm still holding his ribs. “I need a beer, and it’s succubus night at Thirst. Maybe your granny will hit on you again.” He shrugged at Logan’s fuck-you look. “What, too soon?”

“Maybe ask Limos that.”

Shame put a shadow across Mace’s face, but only for a second—a fraction of a second. The guy possessed all the empathy of a deer tick.

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