Demon Marked Read online

  Hurrying across the cracked brown tile, Emma headed for the silver door and the back alley beyond, certain the man was behind her. He didn’t seem to be the sharpest knife in the case, but he was smart enough to read the interest in a woman’s eyes and horny enough to go for a chick who barely filled out an A cup.

  Or maybe he was simply frugal—preferring to get his pussy for free instead of paying for it like his buddies were intending to do. Not everyone cared to spend their hard-earned money on prostitutes.

  Emma could sympathize. Money had always been tight around the halfway house growing up. Father Paul worked as a chaplain for a hospital, and collecting weird kids was an expensive habit. There were nights when everyone went hungry for traditional sorts of food. No one ever had their supernatural needs unmet, however; Father Paul made sure of that. He considered it a holy calling to provide for the strange children in his care, to teach them how to manage their inhuman powers, to control their baser cravings, to feed their unnatural hungers with the appropriate sort of food.

  Food. Damn, she was hungry. The dark craving that had been her companion since the day her parents offered her as a sacrifice surged through her body, making her fingertips itch and burn.

  “Come and get it,” Emma whispered under her breath as she slipped into the shadows behind the bar.

  The alley was wide and clear except for two small Dumpsters and an oversized ashtray—the city made sure the streets were kept tidy to prevent infestation by demons who made their nests in tight, crowded places—but it was still dark. It wasn’t a place where a woman should walk alone. There were predators in Southie who didn’t need teeth or claws, who used fists and knives and guns to dominate, steal, and kill.

  She wondered what kind of weapon Blue Eyes was packing—the trademark DM knife or something with a little more firepower. Either way, it wouldn’t matter, not as long as she got him close enough to touch before he whipped anything out.

  Anything other than his dick, of course. Emma didn’t mind when men whipped out that particular “weapon.” A man with his dick in his hand was a man with his head in the clouds. Or maybe someplace less wholesome than the clouds, someplace darker, more dangerous ...

  The door creaked open, and Blue Eyes stepped out of the bar, his movements confident but careful. He was a man used to watching his back, accustomed to keeping one eye peeled for possible threats. But she was one “threat” he would never see coming. They never did, not one person in all the time she’d been stealing from the wicked.

  “Over here,” she said, her voice trembling a bit. The man turned toward her, looking even scarier in the shadows. “What’s up?”

  “You said you were taking out the trash. Figured I had something that needed to be thrown away.” He held up the nearly empty tequila bottle, and his features twisted into what Emma supposed was meant to be a smile.

  “That was thoughtful of you.”

  “That’s me. Thoughtful.” He closed the distance between them in four long steps and reached out, cupping her breast in his hand and squeezing, making his intentions abundantly clear.

  Guess he wasn’t much for verbal foreplay. Good. She wasn’t, either.

  “So you want to do this here?” she asked, running one hand up into his greasy hair as he pulled her close, willing her fingertips to find the pressure points on the skull that made her job so much easier. She had to make sure he was one of the bad guys. It was what Father Paul had insisted upon, and she’d never gone against his teachings. She’d never wanted to. She might be a killer, but she wasn’t a monster.

  “Fuck yeah. Here’s good.” He laughed and tipped the tequila bottle back, emptying it before throwing it against the bricks behind them.

  “Good, I—” Emma groaned as he slammed his mouth down on hers, his tongue probing between her lips, sending secondhand tequila rushing into her throat. It was swallow or gag, but Emma regretted her decision to drink as soon as the tequila hit her stomach.

  Her belly clenched and cramped, and the dark craving grew even stronger, sizzling along her nerve endings, making her fingers feel like they would catch fire at any moment. The telltale blue light erupted from her hands before she could control it. She’d waited too long. She couldn’t remember feeling this weak, this needy, even in the months she’d been Ezra’s captive. He’d known what she was and helped her survive, bringing her suitable “snacks” every few days.

  Thankfully, the thug’s eyes were closed, but he’d notice the pale blue glow sooner or later. She had to hurry.

  Forcing her attention away from the thick tongue that moved sluggishly in her mouth and the meaty fingers squeezing first her breasts and then her ass, Emma concentrated on the hands pressed against Blue Eyes’ greasy head, sending her intention out through her fingertips.

  Almost immediately, images flashed on her mental screen—Blue Eyes’ rat hole of an apartment near the ruins, the interior of a nearly empty fridge, a pile of dirty laundry he’d dug through to find his shirt for the evening. The mundane flooded in first, as it always did, but Emma swam deeper, sending her mind into the man she touched, the need within searching for what it craved.

  She found it seconds later—the pale face of a little girl with a split lip, bleeding from where one of Blue Eyes’ fists had connected with her face, the gutted corpse of a man he’d shoved out of a boat into demon-infested waters, the mascara-stained cheeks of a woman who screamed as his hand fisted in her hair.

  Emma had seen enough. More than enough.

  Silently, she reversed the flow of her energy, no longer diving into her victim, but swimming to the surface, pulling his evil along with her. The sin-filled memories flowed into her fingers, up her hands, surging through her arms and into her chest, where her heart slammed against her ribs, her body working to disperse the energy to her demon-altered cells.

  The aura demons fed on the pain and suffering of humans; Emma fed on evil. It was a slight difference but an important one. When her parents had given her blood to the demons, the very essence of her had been changed, mutated. A part of her became more demon than human. In many ways, she was like the monsters that had nearly killed her. She craved human life force and had to steal the vitality of others to survive. But she stole only from those who deserved what she did to them, those whose karmic balance was firmly tipped into the realm of evil. The choice allowed her to sleep at night, and as an added bonus ...

  Evil was damned tasty.

  Emma moaned as she pulled harder on the man’s soul, sucking out all the bad mojo he’d created with every horrible thing he’d ever done. She didn’t know how her body fed on the nastiness flowing into her fingers, but it did. God, it did. She hadn’t felt this good in weeks, since the last time she’d lured a very bad man into a very dark alley.

  Faster and faster the energy flowed, until the blue glow in her hands burned so bright that Emma could see it behind her closed eyes.

  Blue Eyes pulled his mouth away from hers, removing the repugnant tongue Emma had hardly noticed was still moving against hers. Once the feeding began, the awareness of everything else faded away. “What? What the ...” The man’s voice cracked, and he swayed on his feet.

  “Don’t stop. You feel so, so good.” Emma smiled up into his face, not at all troubled by what she saw there.

  The blue light from her hands lit up Blue Eyes’ head like a jack-o’-lantern, revealing a second face lurking beneath the skin and bone. It was the face of his soul, the hidden visage only she could see. She watched as the face shriveled before her eyes, wrinkles became tears in the spirit flesh, rotten places that would fester long after she removed her hands.

  No one else would ever witness the transformation—she herself would see nothing but a healthy young man as soon as the blue light faded—but the damage had been done. She’d sucked away his vital energy, gobbled up his life force, and there would be a price to pay. He’d die from what she’d done, sooner or later, simply fall over dead from a heart attack or stroke that no one
would ever understand.

  And no one would be able to connect it to her ... assuming she stopped before it was too late.

  With more effort than she would have liked, Emma pulled her hands away from Blue Eyes’ head. Immediately the blue light disappeared and the soul face vanished. Once again, he looked like what he had been—a healthy young monster at the beginning of a lifetime career of evil.

  But now that lifetime was going to be a whole hell of a lot shorter.

  “I feel ... sick. ...” The man’s hands fell to his sides.

  “Bummer.” Emma looped his arm around her shoulders when he swayed again. “Must be the tequila.”

  “Yeah. Fuck. Just give me a second ... and I’ll be ready to go. ...” He groaned and clutched at his stomach. Emma had just enough time to jump back before he bent double and emptied his stomach on her favorite pair of black boots.

  “Great,” she whispered beneath her breath, hand flying to press against her nose. Ugh. The smell was noxious, like rotten eggs mixed with pizza and a tequila-and-stomach-acid cocktail. It was all she could do not to gag. “I’ll go get your ...”

  Gang buddies? Fellow killers? BFFs?

  Blue Eyes heaved again. Emma flinched and danced back a few steps.

  “I’ll get somebody,” she said, turning toward the door. Or maybe she wouldn’t. The man was a monster, and she’d just taken the majority of his life away. It seemed hypocritical to fetch someone to hold his hair while he barfed. Not to mention the fact that he had a crew cut.

  Yeah. He could sleep in his own vomit for all she cared. She’d just have to make sure he was gone ... before they closed up. ... Maybe she could ...

  Her head spun, and black flecks teased the edges of her vision, but Emma didn’t think much of it until she tried to reach for the silver door handle and found that her arm wouldn’t move.

  Just. Wouldn’t. Move.

  Her legs followed the disturbing trend seconds later, her knees buckling, sending her pitching toward the pavement. Her bony shoulder hit first, followed by her temple. Pain bloomed inside her head, like something from her sister Sam’s flower shop.

  “Ginger ...” Emma heard her own voice from a distance, as if the sound were drifting through water. Then she was pulled under the waves, too, swept away from the conscious world.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sand doesn’t always stay inside the sandbox, and demons don’t always stay within the rubble of the actual ruins.

  The entire barricaded area of south Manhattan—Southie, as the locals called it—was a high-risk area. If you lived inside the ten-foot-high, heavily fortified barrier, it paid to be on your guard. Attacks in residential areas were rare, but they happened, especially late at night. It was dumb to wander around in dark, abandoned places.

  It was even dumber to pass out cold in dark, abandoned places.

  Emma woke up with a start, thrashing her arms, sending the cat-sized gray demons crouched around her body scurrying away into the darkness. She shuddered, skin crawling as she swiped at the sticky trails the demons’ tongues had left on her exposed arms.

  Ugh. Gross. So gross. But it could have been so much worse. Squat demons were repulsive—hairless beasties that looked like a cross between a naked mole rat and a pug dog—but at least they were largely harmless to humans. One of the larger demon species would have killed and eaten her. Hell, the Squats might have started to nibble—though they preferred to dine on rodents—if she’d stayed out much longer.

  Or if they hadn’t already filled their bellies. Blue Eyes lay on his side a few feet away—unconscious, as she’d been a second ago—but his puke puddle was gone.

  Blech.

  It was no wonder her gang thug had passed out—considering the amount of tequila he’d chugged combined with the drain she’d put on him—but what the hell had happened to her? Why had she fainted? And why was it so dark?

  Emma looked up, just barely able to make out the silhouette of the unlit spotlight that usually illuminated the back door against the night sky. It must have blown while she was passed out.

  Great, now she was going to have to drag a ladder back here and replace it before closing. She certainly didn’t want any of the Squats coming back and trying to nest in the Dumpsters. No matter how crappy she felt, she had to make sure the demon-deterring light was burning before she headed for home.

  Mouth dry and head aching, Emma pushed to her feet, casting one last look at the Death Ministry dude. He was still out, but the Squats were gone. He’d be safe enough while she went inside and grabbed a new lightbulb. She’d have Ginger clue his buddies in to the fact that he was passed out drunk in the back alley and let them decide whether to mess with Blue Eyes or not.

  Emma reached for the door—grateful that her arms and legs seemed to be working again—but the handle didn’t budge. Frowning, she pushed down harder, leveraging her weight against it. Still nothing.

  “What the hell?” Emma kicked the door. Ginger must have locked the door early.

  Ever since Stephen had “disappeared,” Ginger had been more anxious about living in demon-infested New York, so anxious that she’d talked about getting a second job and trying to move to midtown. She’d encouraged Emma to come with her even though they’d been roomies for only a few months, but Emma wanted to stay in Southie.

  She was sure there were bad guys outside the barricade, but they might not be as easy to find or to lure into dark, secluded areas where there was no one to observe when her hands started to glow. Being a freak with an aura demon’s hunger had its challenges, and it was easier to get what she needed on the wrong side of the tracks.

  Emma kicked the door again—once, twice, three times—then called out for Ginger. “Hey! Come open the door! I’m out back!” She waited for a beat, then kicked the door again. Where the hell was Ginger? Maybe she couldn’t hear her over the music. ...

  Wait a second. There wasn’t any music. Emma pressed her ear to the door, straining to hear inside the bar. The metal was thick, but she could usually hear the beat of whatever song was playing and the rumble of voices through the door. But now ... nothing. It was eerily quiet.

  Had Ginger closed up already? What time was it?

  “Shit,” Emma whispered, patting her pockets. She didn’t have the keys with her, and her purse was still locked in the safe beneath the bar. The bar keys, her house key, the stupid earbud Sam had given her to use instead of her tragically outdated cell phone—they were all locked inside the Demon’s Breath.

  Unless Ginger was still here, waiting for her out front. She’d have to run around a long city block to find out, which would be no big deal except ...

  “Hey, you,” Emma said, crossing back to the man still passed out on the ground. “You need to wake up.”

  Blue Eyes lay as still as a stone, so blasted he wasn’t within the reach of the human voice. She was going to have to try more aggressive measures.

  “Come on, wake up.” She toed his wide back with her boot, then nudged him a little harder but barely produced a ripple in his muscled flesh. The guy was enormous. There was no way she’d be able to drag him around to the main street.

  Shit! Despite the voice in her head screaming she should leave the murdering, child-beating asshole to be eaten, she knelt down beside him and grabbed his arm.

  She might have sucked his life force, but she couldn’t let him be demon food, no matter how many horrible things he’d done. The death she’d helped speed his way would be fairly merciful; being eaten alive by demons would not. She didn’t go in for torture ... even for evil bastards like this one.

  “Dude, you need to—” Her words ended in a gasp as she pulled hard on Blue Eyes’ arm and he rolled heavily over onto his back. For a second she thought he was awake, before she realized that those striking, cruel eyes weren’t blinking, but staring sightlessly into the night.

  Emma bit her lip and forced back the wave of nausea that threatened as she realized what she’d done. She’d killed him. She mu
st have taken too much. She’d waited too long, let the craving grow too strong, and she’d taken too much of the man’s life. Despite the fact that he was a criminal and that she’d known her actions would bring about his death sooner or later, the moment of understanding still hit her hard. Very hard.

  It had been a long, long time since she’d looked into the face of one of her victims and seen the emptiness of a soulless corpse. Not since those first few kills, when she’d been so young and lacked control. Since then, Father Paul had kept her informed of which of their carefully chosen targets had passed, and occasionally she heard about a death secondhand—read an obituary or watched a death reported on the news—but she’d been spared having the consequences of her twisted hunger shoved in her face.

  It was horrific, bringing home the wrongness of what she was in a nightmarish way.

  “Okay ... okay ...” Trembling, Emma rose, swiping her hands back and forth against her jeans as if she could brush away the lingering taint of death.

  But she couldn’t. The man was dead, and there was a damn good chance she would be connected to his murder. No one had seen her leave the bar, but what about Blue Eyes? He might have told his kill buddies that he was going out back to bang the pub manager, for all she knew. Even if he hadn’t, she’d talked to the Death Ministry members just before going outside. She was the only person who’d dared approach them all night. No matter how much tequila they’d had, one of them was going to remember the stupid blond girl who’d warned them to behave.

  Come tomorrow morning, or whenever this body was found, she could have four very scary men on her trail. They might never guess that she’d killed the man, but they would suspect she knew something about how old Blue Eyes had bit it. It didn’t matter that an autopsy would prove this man had died of a heart attack; there might not be an autopsy. There would be a Death Ministry-style investigation; she’d be questioned and killed if she didn’t provide answers that satisfied.