Demon Marked

The long, narrow hall leading to her apartment was a dark, cramped passage without a single window. The only illumination came from a pair of bare bulbs hanging at the beginning and end of the hallway. It was usually so dark she could barely see to fish her key from her purse and fit it into the lock.

This morning, however, a bright shaft of light pierced the gloom from the second apartment on the right. The door to Emma and Ginger’s shared living space stood open, illuminating the flat, gray plaster on the opposite side of the hall, revealing the faint striped pattern of ancient wallpaper that had been painted over at least a dozen times.

She didn’t worry about styling her hair—products were useless against its stubborn straightness—but she did worry about protecting herself on the Southie streets. A lot of women carried Mace in their purses. Emma took things a step further and had purchased a six-pack of miniflamethrowers from the secret back room at Yang’s Curiosity Shop.

A girl couldn’t always depend on her life-sucking hands. Emma still followed Father Paul’s advice and did her best not to show the world at large what she could do. She fed in private, and criminals often attacked in public. Ginger had been mugged three times in the past five years, all three times in broad daylight on a crowded Southie street.

If her roomie had been hanging with Emma, however, Emma was pretty damned sure the men who’d robbed Ginger wouldn’t have gotten away with her purse. Just like whoever had broken into their apartment wasn’t going to get away with any of their meager belongings. She might not have her purse or her special hair spray, but she still had the dark craving. It had probably gotten her into this mess. Now it might just have to get her out of it.

Slowly, she crept down the hall, ears straining for any sounds coming from the apartment. There was no point in turning and running down the stairs. If the Death Ministry had found the body and come looking for her, she would be better off dealing with them now.

They wouldn’t have found anything to connect her to Blue Eyes in her apartment. Hopefully, she could convince them she’d had nothing to do with his death, that she’d passed out and could have died in that alley if she’d had the misfortune to collapse in a puddle of her own vomit the way their friend had. Maybe they would believe her. Maybe she wouldn’t need to take matters into her own hands. ...

By the time she reached the door, her heart was beating in her throat. She couldn’t remember being this afraid since the night the aura demons were banished last spring.

But then ... this wasn’t just her life on the line. If the Death Ministry had found the corpse at the Demon’s Breath, then Sam and Jace and Ginger and everyone she cared about would be in danger. Emma might not feel comfortable getting too close to her new friends and family, but the thought of someone hurting them made her crazy. She’d do anything to keep them safe.

Sam was so good, too good to spend her time with a kid sister who was basically a serial killer. And Ginger was just a sweet party girl. She’d never done anything to deserve the kind of pain and suffering the Death Ministry could dish out. But what if Emma was too late? What if whoever had broken into the apartment had already hurt Ginger?

Emma’s jaw clenched and her hands shook as she risked a quick glance into the apartment. “What the hell?” Muscles relaxing slightly, she eased inside, surveying the destruction.

The combination living room and kitchenette was wrecked—pots and pans flung from the cupboards, dishes smashed on the bare wooden floor, and the ancient sofa gutted, its yellow stuffing erupting from the blue flowered upholstery. The bookshelf in the corner was overturned, and ripped pages fluttered across the room, carried by the breeze from the open window.

Ginger’s and Emma’s cramped bedrooms hadn’t fared much better. Clothes exploded from the doors to the left and right, spilling out into the main room—a great puddle of black from Emma’s and a riot of color from Ginger’s.

“Ginger? Are you here?” Emma asked, even though she knew no one would answer. It was too quiet. Whoever had done this was already gone and hadn’t left anyone behind to hang out in the mess they’d made.

She was going to have to ask one of their neighbors to borrow a bud, which was going to be a lot of fun. If Ginger’s tales were to be believed, the dude at the end of the hall was some kind of hoarding freak who had six cats and a collection of ten thousand old Playboy magazines stacked to his ceiling. Emma had never seen any sign of the man aside from the occasional bag of dirty kitty litter pitched out his back window and didn’t want to see more of him anytime soon.

The single moms in apartments two and four would be a better choice if they would answer their doors, but they probably wouldn’t. Parents guarding children on this side of the barricade couldn’t afford to take any chances, even on a relatively harmless-looking woman like Emma. She might appear young and innocent, but for all they knew she could be a demon drug junkie willing to kill and steal in the name of her next high. She could be—

The television still sat silent and dust covered on its rickety wooden stand. The Internet uplink box was cracked in half, but all its various wires and chips were still inside. If this were a simple robbery, the thieves would have taken the lightweight flat screen and the box. She and Ginger didn’t have much else worth stealing except their purses and earbuds, but some of Ginger’s clothes would have fetched something on the street.

Emma picked her way through the clutter, peeking into Ginger’s empty room. The mattress was ripped apart and Ginger’s ceramic Day of the Dead figurines smashed to pieces, but her leather coat and vast collection of boots—some of them demon skin and worth nearly a grand new—seemed intact. Whoever had wrecked their apartment had been looking for something other than things to fleece for drug money.

Which meant the Death Ministry must have found the body and come looking for Emma. She couldn’t think of any other reason that this had happened. Ginger certainly didn’t have any enemies ... or at least she hadn’t until Emma screwed up and put both of their lives in danger.

Emma cursed again and leaned heavily against the doorframe as her stomach clenched and a wave of sickness rolled from her aching midsection up to her throat and back down again. The nausea was getting worse, as was the dizziness that had lingered at the edges of her brain since she woke up in the alley a couple of hours before.

Something had gone wrong tonight, not just for the man she killed, but for her as well. She’d never felt this ill after a feeding. Hell, she rarely felt ill, period. Whatever the aura demons had done to her when she was a baby, it had made her damned near invulnerable to disease. Once she’d learned how to meet her supernatural needs, she’d walked out of the children’s hospital on her own two feet and hadn’t needed anything more serious than a painkiller since. Father Paul had said her health was a blessing from god.

Father Paul ... It had been more than a year since she’d stolen the book from his library and ran away in the middle of the night. He probably thought she was dead by now. No matter how standoffish she’d been with most people, she’d never been able to go more than a few days without talking to the father. He was the closest thing she’d had to a parent, the only person she’d ever truly believed she could count on.

He would help her if she called. He would use his knowledge of the supernatural to try to figure out why this feeding had left her so dizzy and ill. He wouldn’t even be angry that she’d killed a man.

For all his kindness, Father Paul had a taste for the blood of those who preyed on the innocent. Her first victim had been a priest the father had discovered was molesting young boys in his parish. Father Paul had dressed her up as a little boy, stuffing her long, blond hair under a ball cap. Emma had been only three and a half, but she could still remember the way the other priest’s eyes had gleamed when he looked at her, remember the wickedness in his touch when he pulled her onto his lap.

The man hadn’t survived thirty seconds. She’d killed him, taking too much, too fast. Luckily, the priest was old and had a history of heart problems, so no questions had been asked and no autopsy performed.

Emma and Father Paul hadn’t been so lucky on their second kill—a teenage boy from a neighboring town who was convicted of killing his two younger sisters, but then set free on a technicality. Emma had killed him as well, and the coroner had been unable to pinpoint a reason for the heart attack. The police suspected foul play, and Father Paul was questioned since he’d been spotted talking to the boy only a few hours before his death.

After that, they’d had to be more careful. Father Paul had made Emma practice using the blue light on some of the comatose patients at the hospital where he worked until she could control how much she stole, until they could make sure her theft didn’t result in the immediate death of her victims. But Emma could still remember those first few kills: the two evil men and the one sweet woman she’d never meant to hurt. Not one of them had made her feel so ill. To the contrary, she’d felt energized, powerful, high on the stolen life force.

The fainting, the nausea, the dizziness that made her head spin and her knees feel so weak that she slid down the doorframe to sit on the clothes-strewn floor, were all wrong. So wrong. If she could just get to a phone ... she could call Father Paul, and he would try to figure out what had happened. He would drop everything to come help her.

But even as her heart raced and her skin broke out in a cold sweat, Emma knew she wouldn’t call the priest—even if someone walked into the room and stuck a bud in her ear right now. She’d stolen from him, betrayed him, and turned her back on everything he’d done for her. He was the only person she knew who might have some clue what was going on with her crazy, demon-warped body, but she couldn’t call him. She didn’t deserve his help.

It was true. She didn’t deserve anyone’s help. She’d stolen from someone who loved her to bribe a complete stranger who’d promised to help her find her “real” family. Ezra had led her to Stephen and Sam, all right, but the spell book she’d given him had killed her brother and nearly killed her sister as well before she’d even had the chance to meet them.

If Ezra hadn’t shown her pictures of Sam and Stephen, she wouldn’t have known what they looked like, would never have been able to trail them through Southie in an attempt to save their lives and redeem herself for having put them in danger in the first place. She’d saved Sam, but Stephen was dead. Now, for all she knew, Ginger could be dead, too. And maybe Andre would be next if he was caught sniffing around the Demon’s Breath looking for the body. Emma should have known better than to try to be close to anyone, to dare to live among people she cared about. She was poisonous, a freak who ended up bringing misery to every life she touched.

She swiped at the wetness, shocked at how warm the tears felt compared to the cold sweat on the back of her hand ... the very gold, glittery sweat on the back of her hand.

The good news was that she could rest easy knowing she hadn’t killed Blue Eyes, after all. He must have overdosed on Hamma claws—the only demon drug she knew of that made users sweat shiny gold glitter—and would have died if she’d never laid a hand on him. If it hadn’t been so dark in the alley, she probably would have seen the telltale shimmer all over his acne-speckled face.

The bad news was that he must have slipped ground-up claws into his tequila, the same tequila he’d forced down her throat when they’d kissed. For a hard-core addict, drinking ground-up claws would produce a hell of a high, but for someone who’d never touched demon drugs, it would just make them as sick as a fucking dog.

Casual users sniffed tiny amounts of claw dust; they didn’t ingest it. Emma had never touched the stuff, but allegedly the high from snorting the claws was mild and enjoyable, with few side effects other than increased wakefulness and “sparking”—breaking out in sparkly sweat. A lot of celebrities used Hamma for exactly that reason. Nothing looked better with a California tan than a little gold sparkle.

Emma probably looked great—like a grungy supermodel on her way to a party; she just felt like she was going to die. And maybe she was. Some people were deathly allergic to Hamma claws. One sniff and they were gone.

Shit. She had to get to a phone ... had to call someone.... Maybe Ginger was okay and would answer her bud. If so, she might know what to do in the case of a possible overdose. She’d earned her good-time girl reputation and had to have had some experience dealing with friends who’d partied too hard.

“Oh ... god.” Emma moaned as she pushed herself into a seated position. Her stomach echoed her displeasure with a violent contraction. The room spun, but Emma managed to totter to her feet and take a few unsteady steps toward the door before she fell to her hands and knees once more. She hissed and hurried to snatch her right hand off the floor, but it was too late. Tiny shards of shattered glass stuck in her fingers, bringing bright red blood to the surface to mingle with the gold glitter of her toxic sweat.

Ugh. She felt about two years old, so unsteady and out of control of her own body. Even if she managed to stand up, she wouldn’t be standing for long. There was no way she was going to make it to the door, let alone down the hall to knock on one of her neighbors’ doors. She was screwed, completely screwed—

Even with her pulse pounding in her ears, Emma recognized Andre’s voice immediately. “In here!” she screamed, ignoring the way her heart leapt even as her stomach did another swan dive into her guts. She was excited to hear Andre’s voice because she’d be excited to see anyone right now. Even Death Ministry members would have been welcome.

“Emma, are you—” Andre’s voice broke off in a sharp exhalation as he hurried to her side. Emma fought the urge to lean into the arms he wrapped around her and failed. He felt so good, even better than he had earlier in the morning. With a sigh, she let him pull her into a seated position and halfway onto his lap. “What the hell happened? Are you ... You’re not okay.”

“Thank you.” Emma swallowed hard and lifted her eyes to meet Andre’s, determined not to barf on the man who’d saved her ass twice in the past two hours. “I came home and found the apartment like this. But whoever wrecked it didn’t steal anything. I think it must have been the Death Ministry. I can’t think of anyone else who—”

“The body was gone,” Andre said, confirming her fears. “The guy I sent over to pick it up said there was nothing behind the bar.”

“How much did you take?” he asked, slowly, clearly, as if talking to someone with very little brain. “A couple hundred milligrams?”

“You’re sparking, Emma.” Andre’s lip curled as he glanced down at his suit, now smeared with gold shimmer in the places where her bare skin had brushed against him. “You’re covered in Hamma dust.”

“I know, but I didn’t take it. I think the guy I was with last night spiked the tequila we were drinking,” Emma said, needing to prove to Andre that she wasn’t a demon drug user. After what had happened to his fiancée . . . Well, he obviously didn’t need any more drug-related drama. “That must be the reason I passed out. I—”

“No, I don’t know.” Emma tried to contain her irritation and failed. Andre didn’t know her from Adam, but she still resented being called a liar for a second time this morning. She might kill people, but she didn’t lie ... at least not to anyone except the investigating authorities. “I don’t take drugs.”

“But I don’t—” Emma sucked in a breath on a gasp as Andre hauled her to her feet, swinging her arm over his shoulders as his other arm went about her waist.

The room spun so fast that colors blurred, smearing before her eyes. Her brain joined her stomach in a heaving pitch, and Emma knew she would have fallen back to the floor if Andre hadn’t scooped her into his arms. Her entire body tensed but just as quickly relaxed as she realized Andre was more than capable of keeping her aloft. He had some serious muscles under that suit, the product of all those early mornings in the gym that made Jace poke fun at him for being a vain bastard.

He might maintain the body to please his endless stream of women, but Emma couldn’t deny that his strong, capable arms felt nice ... better than nice.

Had a man ever held her like this? She couldn’t remember, but a part of her wished Andre was holding her for reasons other than the fact that she was too messed up to stand.

“Oh ... okay ...” She looped her trembling arms around Andre’s shoulders and fought the urge to be sick with everything in her, focusing on the way he held her—so tight and close and safe—instead of the revolt being staged in her digestive system.

Why did people take this toxic crap? Surely something that made her feel so wretched couldn’t really make anyone feel good. Could it?

“And call Ginger, too—my roommate,” Emma said, biting back a whimper as Andre bounced down the steps, shaking up her insides until she almost lost control of her stomach. “I need to make sure she’s safe and that she doesn’t come home. At least not alone.”

Andre grunted. “Hey, cousin,” Andre said as Little Francis answered his bud. “I’ve got a situation. I need Dr. Finch to meet me at your office.”

He paused, listening to his cousin as he pushed the door to her building open with one foot and strode out into the morning light. Emma winced and turned her face into his chest. The light made the spinning in her head worse, made her brain feel like it was going to turn to liquid and come streaming out of her ears.

“Ten minutes ago would be best. It’s Hamma claws, so we’ll probably need the antivenom. Also see if you can track down Emma Quinn’s roommate. Some girl named Ginger—”

“Ginger Spatz.” Emma forced the words out through her buzzing lips. Her entire face was starting to go numb, making her worry she might truly be overdosing. What if they didn’t make it to the doctor in time? What if she died and left everyone she cared about to believe she’d been using drugs? She didn’t want to go out like that, couldn’t stand the thought that she’d disappoint Sam so profoundly.

“Ginger Spatz,” Andre repeated to Little Francis. “If you get in touch with her, tell her to head uptown to one of our safe houses and I’ll be in contact soon. Her apartment was trashed, and we have reason to believe the people who broke in might still be hanging around.”

Andre bent down suddenly, making Emma gasp until she realized he was sliding her into the backseat of one of Conti Bounty’s many luxury cars. She smelled the well-tended leather of the seats even before she felt the cool, smooth brush of it against her skin. She lay down, pressing her cheek against the cold, and tried to form the words to tell Andre that—assuming she survived—she’d pay for any damage her glittery skin did to his car. And his suit ... and anything else she’d messed up ...

But her lips had gone from numb to frozen. All she could do was moan low in her throat and cling to the hand Andre slipped into hers as the driver pulled out into traffic, speeding toward the waterfront offices of Conti Bounty.