Demon Marked

St. Anthony’s gray stone facade was crumbling and in need of a good deal of repair, but there was a certain nobility to the way the church shrugged its way out onto the street, forcing everyone who passed to take notice of its last remaining stained-glass window. The collection of panes was twenty feet wide and nearly as tall, depicting Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.

Emma had been raised Catholic—Father Paul was serious about all of the kids in his house dragging their butts to Mass at least once a week—but she’d never been sure what she believed as far as the spiritual realm was concerned. She knew there was supernatural evil in the world, so it made sense that there was also supernatural good.

But was that supernatural good God ... or something else? And no matter what or who it was, would it ever truly listen to her, a person marked by demonic evil?

“You’d be surprised.” Emma led the way around the church, headed toward the back entrance where a sign urged people in need of a meal or a bed to check in with the volunteer on duty. “At the Lutheran shelter where I stayed last spring, there were some really great people. Even some families with little kids.”

“Wow. That’s ... tough,” Andre said, with that look of genuine concern that was still so new to her. She’d never seen Andre be genuine about much of anything. But something had changed between them in the past few hours, something that drew her to him just as powerfully as the physical attraction simmering between them.

Physical attraction. God, his kiss, his hands on her breasts, making her feel things she’d never dreamed she could feel. The need pumping through her veins had been even more intense than it had been the first time they’d touched.

It had left her wanting more. And more and more and more, until it was hard to look at Andre without plotting ways for them to be alone. She was past ready to see what else she’d been missing—and not willing to wait much longer. She’d waited long enough, and who knew how much time she had left.

If someone had found the spell book, her life could be in danger again. Most of the serious spells in the grimoire required the aid of a person marked by aura demons. Not just anyone could pick up the book and start casting—even if they could properly translate and pronounce the demon lexicon. They would need Emma or someone like her.

Should they come for her, she would have options—refuse to help them the way she’d refused Ezra, or take a chance and attempt to use her curse as a weapon. One of the spells she’d been translating talked about casting out the demon hunger onto one’s enemies until the “unmarked perished from the inability to feed.” But honestly, she wasn’t sure even a life-or-death situation could tempt her to speak any of the grimoire’s words out loud.

What if she wasn’t translating the spell correctly? She feared becoming something worse than she was already—like the monster her brother Stephen had been at the end—too much to take the chance. Dying would be preferable to becoming something even closer to demon than human.

Emma shuddered but forced a tight smile for the men hanging out near the back entrance, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes that smelled like they contained something other than pure tobacco. The poor could get the ashes left over from burning Inuago demon pellets for a few dollars per ounce. The high wasn’t nearly as strong and was especially hard on the liver, but it was far cheaper than a shot of whiskey.

It was certainly nothing fancy. A dilapidated green couch squatted in a corner, three sets of double doors—one on each wall—led to destinations unknown, and a yellowed sliding-glass window offered a view into a small office space with desks crammed together and a half dozen wall phones packed haphazardly behind the woman working the desk.

The walls of the space were flat beige, and the tile looked like it hadn’t been replaced since the demon emergence. Great cracks slithered beneath their feet, letting in tufts of something black and fibrous. Probably the source of the moldy smell lingering beneath the pungent aroma of grilled onions coming from the dining hall.

“Let’s try friendly person from the neighborhood first. If that doesn’t work, you can go mobby,” Emma whispered as she got in line behind a man and a woman signing up for meal vouchers.

The man snagged his voucher and made way for his companion to sign for hers. It was only nine thirty, so they must be after breakfast. Emma’s stomach growled at the thought. It had been a long time since she’d eaten ... well, eaten food, at least. Her supernatural fix would tide her over for a time, but she’d eventually need something real as well.

She snorted. “I’m asking if you want to eat eggs,” she said, willing herself not to blush. This blushing and flirting and tingling was all so distracting. How did the average woman make it through years of this mating-dance business?

“Yes, I’ll eat eggs with you.” His grin made her think he’d guessed how he affected her and was rather enjoying the mating dance. “But we’re going someplace clean. The Southie filth isn’t working for me.”

The woman in front of Andre, whose face and hands were spotless despite the fact that her clothes had clearly been worn for several days, turned and shot him a look that would have killed a lesser man. Even Andre shrunk inside his suit and guiltily dropped his eyes to the floor.

Emma waited until the man and woman had disappeared into the dining hall before muttering to Andre beneath her breath. “Good work. Way to bond with the people.”

“Sorry,” Andre whispered, seeming ashamed to have been so thoughtless. Maybe there was hope for this man yet. He wasn’t nearly as snobby and elitist as she’d assumed.

“Can I help you?” The dark-skinned woman behind the desk sported even darker bags beneath her eyes. She was wrapped in a purple crochet sweater despite the summer heat creeping into the windowless room. Just looking at her made Emma start sweating.

“I found this. I think it’s for one of your lockers here,” she said, pulling the key from her front pocket. “I was wondering if you could help me return it to whoever had it last?”

“Actually, we’re going to need to take a look inside the locker and get copies of any paperwork that will identify who used it recently.” Andre moved to stand beside her.

“This key was found at a crime scene,” Andre said in his mobbiest, most lawyery voice. “It won’t be hard to get a warrant to search the locker, but then I’d have to bring the police into this, and why inconvenience us all like that?”

So much for letting her take the lead. But she should have known better. Andre wasn’t very good at taking orders. It was frustrating, but it was also one of the things she respected about him. She was finding that the man had several admirable traits. He was dedicated, smart, and compassionate, and he knew his business. Add all that to the fact that he knew his way around a firearm, and it was almost enough to make up for the womanizing and the eyebrow waxing.

The woman sighed, obviously not thrilled with the idea of policemen roaming around the shelter. She was in the business of helping people who were—on the whole—as scared of the police as they were of the gang members who ruled the Southie streets after dark. Bringing in the police would dramatically impact her ability to provide food and shelter to people who needed them.

“I can let you look inside this locker. If the key works, which a lot of times they don’t,” she said. “But you’ll be supervised by one of our staff, and none of the contents of the locker can be removed without a warrant. You got that?”

“Stewart!” she yelled over her shoulder, summoning a thin young man from the desk behind her. Stewart wore thick glasses that looked at least half a century old and had skin so dark it made his faded black T-shirt look gray. “Take these two back to the lockers and let them try their key. Don’t let ’em take anything.”

Stewart nodded a little too long before jerking his head toward Emma and Andre. He ambled out the narrow door to the office and over to the double doors on the left wall. Emma followed with Andre close behind her as they entered a short hall and approached a second set of doors. Stewart paused in front of them, fiddling with a ring of keys on his belt. His hands trembled as he chose the appropriate key. It took several tries before he managed to slide it into the lock and give it a double turn to the right.

His unsteadiness made her think of one of the girls Father Paul brought back to the halfway house a few years before Emma ran away. Her demon mark had made her tremble all over, like a Chihuahua left out in the snow. The only thing that could calm her down was skin-to-skin contact with other marked people.

Needless to say, she’d been really popular with the boys at the house, despite the fact that she was barely sixteen. Emma had tried not to judge, but a part of her had hated the girl out of simple jealousy. In her heart, Emma believed she’d die a virgin. She never thought she’d be interested in sex. Even if her own mark hadn’t made intimacy dangerous to others, the horrors she’d seen in other people’s minds would have turned her off to the idea of getting naked with a man.

But for some reason, touching Andre didn’t bring back any of those stolen memories. He made her feel safe in a wild, erotic, out-of-control sort of way. But could she really afford to let herself get any more out of control than she had already?

Under normal circumstances, she had to position her fingertips at the base of her victim’s skull in order to feed, but she’d fed with her hands in other positions once or twice. Sometimes the dark craving didn’t want to wait for its next meal. What if that happened while she was with Andre? What if she accidentally fed on him? Even if she only took a little of his life, it would be too much. He was a good guy, maybe even a great one, and didn’t deserve to lose a single day to her demon mark.

“This way, all the way to the back. Don’t touch anything.” Stewart motioned for them to enter a large, cavernous room Emma guessed had once been a sanctuary.

It was filled to capacity with twin-sized cots instead of rows of benches. Some of the beds were perfectly made with clean, white sheets and faded blue blankets, but most were piled with scruffy backpacks, duffel bags, and assorted clothes items. It brought home how very many people had no place to call their own and made Emma grateful for her grungy little apartment. Even decades after the demon emergence, there were still families who hadn’t recovered from the losses they’d suffered. Second and third generations scrabbled to rebuild their lives in the shadows of the ruins that had changed their lives forever.

“We’re looking for number 127,” Andre said as they moved into a smaller room lined with lockers on every side, and more down a hallway to the right.

There were hundreds of them, far more lockers than there were beds for people to sleep in. But some of those beds were probably sleeping more than one—Emma had seen as many as three small children curl up close to their mother for the night. And some of those using the shelter left their belongings in storage. It was easier than bringing everything onto the streets when their seven-day bed pass expired and they had to clear out for a week before applying for another.

Andre moved her firmly behind him, next to where Stewart leaned against the wall opposite the locker. “Yes. In case of face-eating snakes. Better my face than yours. You’re younger and prettier.”

Emma crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, trying and failing to pretend she didn’t enjoy hearing that Andre thought she was pretty. Thankfully, Andre had the locker open seconds later, giving her something else to think about.

“It is. I was thinking it might be.” Andre stood and handed the key back to Stewart. “We won’t be needing this, but we will be needing the records of the last several people who checked out this key.”

“Sure thing.” Stewart started back down the hall, followed by Andre and then Emma. Of the three, she was apparently the only one frustrated by their wild-goose chase.

“Well ... if your crazy theory isn’t crazy, the person after your book probably wants to talk to you pretty badly. If they haven’t figured out that Ginger has what they’re looking for, they’re going to think you can tell them where it is.”

Emma bit her lip for a second, realizing the truth in Andre’s words. “Even if they found Ginger and have the book, they’re probably going to want to ‘talk’ to me. They’ll need someone with a demon mark to help them perform most of the spells,” Emma said, continuing despite Andre’s grunt at the word spell. “There aren’t that many of us around.”

“Most of us die young. I would have died if I hadn’t figured out how to feed myself when I was little. I probably still would have died after that if Father Paul hadn’t taken me away from the hospital and kept me safe.” Emma lowered her voice as they entered the big room and the stained-glass window they’d seen from the opposite side of the church came into view. She hadn’t noticed it on the way through, but now her eyes were drawn to the way the bright colors made the humble beds beneath seem both sad and beautiful at the same time. “My parents’ cult was destroyed, but there are thousands of demon cults out there and more of them forming every day. A lot of people think it’s part of the buildup to the final battle between good and evil.”

“Maybe. That’s what the man who raised me thought. ‘First Timothy, chapter four, verse one: In later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.’”

As he bent over, Emma caught the slight shimmer of gold lingering behind the man’s ears, stuck to the arms of his glasses. Hamma claws ... That’s what was making Stewart tremble. He was probably starting to go into withdrawal. It happened with users who’d been on the stuff for years.

Still ... it was strange to see a man like Stewart sparking. Hamma wasn’t cheap, and the man couldn’t even afford basic laser eye surgery, which had become cheaper than most bicycles.

Emma edged closer to Stewart, continuing to talk to Andre. “But you seem to get along well.” Yep, that was definitely gold dust. She backed away as Stewart opened the door and led them back into the lobby.

“I love my mother.” The tightness in his tone hinted that his family wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. “But sometimes I think I’m a disappointment. She really wanted grandchildren.”

“It will take some time to look up those records.” Stewart interrupted before she could finish her protest. “You want to come back in an hour or so? There’s a coffee stand at the next corner.”

“Sure, no problem,” Andre said, leading the way to the door. Emma followed him out into the bright light, but not without a final look back over her shoulder at old Stewart.

He was standing there, trembling, watching them leave. When he caught Emma’s eyes, he turned and hurried back through the narrow door into the office, but it was too late. Her instincts were screaming that Stewart knew more about that locker than he was letting on. And that he might just feed that Hamma habit with Death Ministry drugs.

She had a feeling she’d be able to find out ... but only if she ditched her escort. Whoever wanted her at the homeless shelter, they’d wanted her here alone. Emma knew it wasn’t the smartest idea to go back by herself, but she couldn’t see that she had a choice.

Besides, she wasn’t going to be stupid. She’d make sure she went in armed and dangerous, equipped with her demon mark and something a little more conventional if her pickpocket skills were still up to snuff. She hated to steal from Andre, but then ... was it really stealing if you intended to give what you were taking back at the earliest convenience?

Emma hoped Andre wouldn’t have the chance to consider that question. After all, how long could it take to get the information she needed from Stewart when she was holding him at gunpoint?