Key of Solomon: Relic Defenders, Book 1 Page 2

  Mystical sigils and wedge-shaped patterns writhed, etching their protective spells deep into the ageless bronze jar. Scriptures and symbols guarded the seventy-two spirits imprisoned inside with the sole purpose of preventing what he intended to do. His lips spread into a thin-lipped smile.

  “Soon, my brothers. Soon you’ll be free.” He reached out, quivering fingers hovering over the still bright metal. The impulse to caress the sand-polished exterior, to smooth his fingers over the sharp-edged sigils, shredded his self-preservation. He could not stop his fingers from moving closer.

  Human flesh burned and shrank away from the Lord’s fire, his weapon burrowing through fragile mortal skin and tissue to seek the demon hiding inside. Skin sizzled and split. Clear fluids splattered, spitting and evaporating as they touched the metal. The crippling pain the human soul felt was nothing to Beliel. Like the buzzing of a biting insect, a mere inconvenience.

  “My king, the humans grow restless.” Gaarp said his voice the rough scratch of iron on stone. The soul-stealer kept his vaporous shape as he drifted by Beliel’s side. “They huddle and bleat like foolish sheep.”

  Beliel lifted his head. “Picku mater!” he swore then spat at the ground.

  A violent shudder ripped through him, and he flinched backwards, away from temptation. Even clothed in the covering of mortal skin, he could not touch the vessel. If he continued to try, the spell’s power would destroy him.

  Low mutters and oaths drifted toward him. He blew out a hissing breath, and his gaze swung to the workers. Shuffling feet kicked up sand and dark eyes wide enough to see large expanses of white returned his glare. Their frightened gazes skittered from his face to his charred arm and back again.

  “Indeed. Sheep. An apt comparison.” He chuckled, a hollow sound that lacked amusement. “Time to deal with the unbelievers.”

  He withdrew his hand and licked blistered lips. A tall, lean human with heavy brows shading tiny eyes, stepped forward. An expression of disgust wrinkled his thick nose. Shaggy hair threaded with gray lay in greasy tendrils to his shoulders.

  “What is this?” The human gestured to the vessel then to Beliel’s blistered and blackened arm.

  Pinning him with an unblinking stare, Beliel used his non-injured hand to unroll his shirtsleeve. The rough fabric scratched burnt skin and fresh needles of agony jabbed raw nerves.

  He ignored the pain and growled, “This is not your concern. The felous I paid you did not buy your curiosity. Do not make me forget my offer. Back away.”

  The human’s eyes widened further, the dark centers constricting. He yanked himself away, his hands up, palms facing outward. Beliel lowered his chin and smiled, a tight smile he knew didn’t reach his eyes. Yes, human, be afraid. His gaze sharpened on the ashen face. Afraid will make you smart. Afraid will keep you alive.

  Bah. Ignorant mortals. They expected a treasure. Wealth. What were riches to him? The vessel’s inhabitants had far more value than mere gold, jewels or the flimsy paper these mortals called money.

  Shutting out the greedy men, Beliel considered the beginning of the end of his plans. He circled the jar. Now that he had the vessel, all he needed was the—. He came to a shuddering stop.

  Where was it? A crash of panic swept through him. In his borrowed chest, his heart turned into a block of ice. It should be there. Momentarily speechless, he circled the vessel again. And again. Each empty pass around the shining foundation of his plans bounced an insidious chant throughout his mind. Not there. Not there. Not there.

  No matter how hard he looked, the Key was not there.

  Beliel’s stomach churned, acid roiling upward, filling his throat. His fingers clenched and unclenched into tight fists. Surely, the mortals had brought everything from the well. Even they could not be so stupid as to leave anything behind. With effort he inhaled, fighting nausea, and drew in a spicy mix of sun-baked metal, salty sweat and pungent dust.

  “Where is the Key?” The words came out in a harsh, raw sound, echoing with all the horror of Hell. He fought to keep his power contained. To keep from popping through his flesh suit like overripe fruit bursting in the heat to reveal his real, hell-birthed form hidden beneath.

  Matching expressions of confusion lined the men’s foreheads. “The book. Where is the book?” he ground out between clenched teeth. Stupid humans.

  “Mawlana, we found nothing else. No book.” A stout man, the one who’d slipped on the dune, babbled as his companions tried to quiet him. “Just the jar. The pit was empty.”

  Blood rushed to Beliel’s cheeks. In the space of a blink, he stood in front of the startled man. Before the foolish mortal could flee, Beliel punched his hand into the human’s neck, tearing through flesh, and ripped out his throat. A gurgling shriek pierced the air. Warm blood spurted, cascading down over the man’s chest to form a scarlet puddle in the sand. A second later, the man’s lifeless body fell to the ground.

  With a hideous, piercing screech of pleasure, Gaarp rushed to the human, covering the corpse in a greasy sheen. When the dead man’s soul tried to flee, the soul-stealer’s hungry jaws locked onto the human’s animus and tore it to shreds. The body jerked a few times before collapsing. Now, instead of the rotund shape, a red-stained, flaccid heap of tattered, filthy clothing littered the ground.

  With the human’s severed throat still in his grip, Beliel lifted his gaze to the remaining men. Like a falling set of dominos, one after the other turned from the body of their downed companion to face him. They backed away. Fear, stark and vivid, glittered in wide eyes.

  Casually, he tossed the chunk of meat at the corpse and shook off most of the sticky substance from his fingers. The rest he rubbed on his clothes. His gaze stayed locked on the humans’ terrified faces. What did they see? Blood red eyes filled with flame? A shadow of what he really was showing through the thin shell of the mortal skin he wore?

  He bared his teeth. The scent of their horror permeated the air like the smell of moldering fruit. Sweet and sour. Teasing tastes of decay. Tantalizing fodder for an empathic demon’s delight. The workers continued to retreat, stumbling over each other in their exodus.

  “Wagef!” When his command in their language to stop had no discernable effect, he thrust out a hand and muttered an incantation. His breath wheezed through his teeth with the effort it took to work power within a human form.

  As if jerked to a halt by ropes around their bodies, the humans froze. A smile of satisfaction twisted his lips. He’d prefer to rip their bodies into tiny pieces and let Gaarp have their souls, but Beliel could ill afford to lose these mortals. Who would then carry the vessel? None with the taint of Hell could touch it. As much as he might want to kill them, he needed these humans alive, instead of serving as food, for a while longer.

  He waved a hand in dismissal. “Take the vessel to El-Arish. There is a ship waiting.”

  With another spell that left his muscles quivering, he implanted the compulsion to do as he commanded. On quick, if a bit shaky, legs, the three men got into the truck. The grating rumble of the engine lingered longer than the dust and view of the battered truck.

  Beliel jerked his head at Gaarp. “Go with them. Make sure the vessel is safely on board the ship then report back to me.”

  “And the men, my king?” Gaarp purred. “What of them?”

  “I have no further use for them.”

  A low, gurgling chuckle came from the soul-stealer. “Thank you, my king.” With a crackle of sound and yellow-green flash of light, the Syndon demon disappeared.

  Beliel glowered at the vessel’s empty resting place. Whirling sand coated the outside edges. Within days, blowing sand and detritus from the whirling desert storms the land’s inhabitants called simoons would fill the pit, obscuring all signs of its existence. As it had for centuries.

  He drove his fist into the center of his burned palm. The burst of agony washed over him like waves on a shallow reef. He welcomed the pain even as the human inside writhed in torment. If the simpletons had
indeed searched each inch, by the fires of Hell, where was King Solomon’s Key? Where was the pretender’s spell book, the book that contained the magic he needed to not only release the spirits but also take their power for his own?

  Lucifer’s balls, he needed the cursed Key. Everything depended on his ability to unseal the vessel. If he could not… No, he refused to think it.

  If the Key was not with the vessel, then only the Defender could have it. Damn it. This meant more time wasted. He’d been a fool not to keep watch over the humans’ protector. No matter. His minions would find the Defender; the book would be his and soon after, so would the kingdom of Hell. Backed by the power of seventy-two fallen spirits, Lucifer would not be able to stand against him.

  With an ease born of centuries of use, Beliel ripped his spirit from the abused body of the human. Just before he entered the Under Realm, he glanced back at the crumpled form of his host. Wide eyes stared unseeingly at the cloudless sky. In the deep lines cut into the mortal’s face, crippling pain wrote a message of horror.

  Ah, yes. Beliel smiled. He’d have it all.

  Chapter Two

  “All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from,

  and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere,

  I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”

  Jalal ad-Din Rumi

  Chicago, Illinois

  Unease dug tiny claws into Lexi Harrison’s scalp. She rubbed sweaty palms on the emerald, rose and gold silk veils of her bedleh, an American-style belly dancing costume, as she waited to perform on a stage spotlighted more this night by stark apprehension than choreographed seduction. Gold pseudo-coins on her hip-hugging beaded belt jangled as she moved. Usually soothing, the hushed chiming sound struck a discordant note as foreboding snaked up and down her spine.

  Several times, she caught herself glancing uneasily over her shoulders. Every backstage shadow seemed to hold a threat. As if someone, something, watched and waited for her to let down her guard. Shit. She pressed her lips together. What the hell was wrong with her? An unusual flare of performance anxiety or something else?

  “Like a half step to a breakdown,” she muttered.

  Maybe the bouncing between school during the day and dancing at night was catching up with her. Lexi tugged on the bottom of her beaded bra and fluffed out the veils draping her waist. Get a grip, girl.

  “Yo, Fatima, you’re on,” the music jockey called out and tossed her a crooked grin.

  She rolled her eyes then shook her head slightly. While she’d wallowed in uncertainty, the pitch of the crowd had changed. Hooting and whistles filled the air, indicating the last set was done. Her own music, a sassy Arabic pop blend, throbbed through the speakers. She took a deep breath and stepped onto the stage.

  Hot lights surrounded her, flowing over her skin and lifting the small hairs on her arms. Under her bare feet, the smooth wood boards of the old stage gave slightly as if she walked on an extra hard mattress. Held her up yet bounced with every impact. Her boss said it made the strippers’ breasts jiggle in just the right way. The prick.

  Two years ago when she’d first approached Howard about belly dancing instead of stripping, he’d been skeptical to say the least. Downright obnoxious, actually. “Men don’t come to see near naked women. They come to see bare titties.”

  Her audition had changed his mind.

  She still remembered Howard’s slack-jawed look and the hard-ons sported by the other men after she’d finished. Since then, she never failed to pack the club when it was her night to dance.

  Time to get to work.

  Unsettled feelings aside, even after dancing four, sometimes, five nights a week, she never got tired of the sensuality or power contained within the Sharqi dance movements. She much preferred this style of Egyptian belly dancing since it was less folksy and more refined and delicate. Besides, she loved the feeling of supremacy and control over the hypnotized audience. Oh, and they were hypnotized. Glassy, staring eyes and slack lips proved that.

  Striking a pose, arms upraised, veils draped seductively about her waist and hips, Lexi waited as a hush fell. She risked a glance about the darkened room. Men, and some women, from all walks of life filled the chairs.

  Business men, stiff in their tailored suits, with desperate gleams in their eyes as if they sought to find relief outside the rigid structure of the world they lived in rubbed elbows with construction workers whose steel-toed boots showed the dusty debris of the worksite. Homeless men skittered about the room’s edges and wore hopeless expressions like heavy clothing.

  All of them lost souls. Like her. Maybe that’s why she was still here. Still dancing. Whatever the reason, she had a job to do. Money to make. Her lips pulled into a quick smile. No open seats. Good. A packed audience. The tips’ll be great.

  She swiveled her hips and slipped into the comforting routine of her choreography. The pulsing beat swirled around her, curling its seductive energy about her body. When she danced, nothing else existed.

  Not the laughter, catcalls or propositions.

  Not the clink of glass or scrape of chairs against the scarred wooden floors.

  Only the thrumming cadence, the crystal clash of the finger cymbals, the jingle of the coins at her waist and the soulful moan of the lute.

  Shutting out everything but the music and the provocative dance movements was the only way she could do what she loved while the lust-filled and often half-crazed faces watched.

  Halfway through her set, that changed.

  Surrounded by a sea of blurred faces, a shadow-shrouded man grabbed her attention, coerced her regard as if a spotlight caught him in its beam. For a brief moment, she froze while her music continued its bewitching tempo.

  The dark figure steeped in gray sat motionless, not attempting to hide the fact he watched her. While that didn’t make him different from the twenty or so other men who did the same thing, his posture and behavior did. Like a quiescent volcano, he left her with the impression that tremendous power lay beneath the serene surface. Power ready to explode at the slightest provocation.

  Three other men occupied the same beer-bottle dotted table. Yet, no one spoke to him. They talked to each other around him. As if they didn’t know he sat there.

  As if they didn’t see him.

  One of his long arms was stretched across the back of the chair next to him. The neck of his black shirt gaped, revealing a muscular, tanned chest dusted with dark hair. He projected an energy that sang a mesmerizing song of hot nights and warm bodies wrapped in cool sheets. Of velvet caresses and hard, yet tender, lips pressed against all her hidden, pleasure points.

  Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she squinted with the effort to make out his features. All she glimpsed was a masculine profile and an occasional silver glint from his eyes when the lights eddied over him. Like viewing an object from behind a full glass of water, his form was vague, yet visible at the same time.

  Flickering, wavering.

  There, but not there.

  From behind the shadows over his face, she felt the touch of his stare, his magnetism so potent she couldn’t look away. A wealth of unspoken words hung in the air, words she could only imagine. Words directed at her. For her. Only her.

  Despite her best efforts to look away, something kept pulling her attention to him. Something familiar. As if she’d seen him before. But where?

  He shifted. The wan, but clear, glow from one of the lights fell over his face and suddenly she saw him as clear as if he stood right before her. The shaft of light struck his hair, illuminating the midnight depths with flashes of fire. She licked her lips as her gaze tracked back to his face, to his firm, sensual lips.

  A brief, violent shiver rippled within her muscles, and she lost a step. Or was it two? To cover her abnormal, and frustrating, reaction, Lexi dropped into a deep downward movement. The satin of her costume and colorful jewel-toned veils drifted with soft scrapes ag
ainst her sensitive skin, skimming across her nipples until they peaked.

  His gaze was riveted on her face then moved to her shoulders and down to her breasts. Embers kissed her skin everywhere his eyes rested. Her breasts tightened while liquid heat pooled between her legs. She licked her lips again. His silver regard turned molten.

  He held her gaze, a long, silent moment suspending between them as if spun from silk into a finely made and equally fragile gossamer thread. Her pulse leaped before settling into an erratic rhythm that threatened to steal her breath away. She slowly drew off each veil, a come-hither siren’s call in every motion. To tantalize, tease and torment. Even as she moved, she knew she’d never danced as well as she did now. Certainly never for a particular man.

  When the last scrap of gauze floated to the ground, she bent backward, a final flourish, knowing as she did so, she delivered a message. For him. Only him. All she had to do was step off the stage and…

  The tinkle and crash of shattering glass, followed by a woman’s squeal, snapped Lexi out of her trance. She swallowed over a dry throat and blinked rapidly. What the hell had just happened? Had she really come close to going to that man?

  God help her, she was losing her mind.

  Another loud protest, this one with the desperate edge of fear, thrust aside her worries over her sanity. She ripped her gaze from the man and straightened. A hitch of her shoulders and shake of her head wiped away the cottony sensation of disorientation.

  Ignoring the complaining men who demanded an encore, she lifted up to her tiptoes and scanned the somber room for the source of the feminine cry. Terror framed the shrill sound.

  A short distance from the stage, Samantha Jones, one of the waitresses clutched her tray tight against her low cut, skin-hugging blouse. Three men surrounded her. One man, built lean but with a bulbous nose and pointed chin, held Sam by the upper arm. The wince on her face told Lexi the jerk’s grip was bruising.

  She stiffened, her gaze fixed on Sam. The waitress’s pale blonde hair glinted under the dim lights. Barely topping out at five two, she had a heart-shaped face, blue eyes and a full, rounded figure. Polar opposite to Lexi’s tall, athletic form, dark hair and faded brown eyes. In attitude too. Sam was all sweet and goodness. Lexie was…not.