Bloodstone

Thanks for reading my books even though

they’re not always your cup of tea.

I could not have chosen better people

to love and guide me throughout my life.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It was a great pleasure to work with Kat Sherbo, who took this manuscript through several drafts, editing them all with great care and attention. Kat’s questions weren’t always easy to answer, but they were always perceptive, intelligent, and aimed at making Bloodstone a better story. Thanks, Kat, for all your hard work. You’re awesome!

The kick-ass cover art comes from Don Sipley, who does an amazing job of bringing Vicky to life. Thanks also to Edwin Tse.

I’m also grateful to the other professionals who worked on this book: text designer Tiffany Estreicher, production editor Michelle Kasper, assistant production editor Andromeda Macri, copy editor Jessica McDonnell, and proofreader Pam Barricklow.

My agent, Gina Panettieri, works hard on my behalf so I can focus on writing. She even sent me chocolate!

My friends and fellow writers Emily Johnson, Pat Carlson, Jeanne Mackin, Nicola Morris, and Janis Kelly offered helpful feedback on parts of the first draft—not to mention fun conversation and good company. Thanks, all!

My daughter, Tamsen Conner, thinks it’s cool that her mom writes this stuff, and listens patiently when I moan about the writing process. She’s the best.

Many friends just made life more fun while I was writing, including Kathy Giacoletto, Maria Giacoletto (you’re still an inspiration!), Michelle Brandwein, Deborah Blake, Kate Laity, Margaret Strother, Sydney Chase, Chris Schjoth, Carlos Thomas (who appears here in a cameo and who created a video game avatar based on Vicky), Keith Pyeatt, Christina Henry, and my fellow bloggers at Dark Central Station: Sean Cummings, Wayne Simmons, Erin Kellison, Gary McMahon, Thomas Emson, and Darren J. Guest.

Thanks to Cam Dufty for making my Deadtown series possible in the first place. And thanks to everyone who reads my books—it’s such a thrill to know that people are following Vicky’s adventures.

Most of all, thanks to my husband, Steven Holzner, who may well be the most patient man on the planet. I know for sure he’s the most loving.

1

BAYSIDE HEALTH CLUB, A FORMER GYM ANGLING TO GO upscale, is where Bostonians go to pump some iron, get sculpted, and trade in their beer bellies for the sexier kind of six-pack. I’d read the brochure. It has a weight room, state-of-the-art exercise equipment, a lap pool, and full-time personal trainers and nutritionists on staff. Everything you need to get motivated and get buff.

But I wasn’t here for a workout. The duffel bag I carried didn’t hold gym clothes. It was loaded up with bronze-bladed daggers and two bottles of holy water. This afternoon, I was here to kill a demon.

As Boston’s only professional demon exterminator, I kill other people’s personal demons for a living. Often, that means I get rid of the demons that give you nightmares or gnaw at your guts with guilt or worry. Harpies— revenge demons sent by a sorcerer—are also big business.

Today, though, I was after a different kind of demon. Bayside Health Club had an out-of-control Peccatum infestation. Peccatum, Latin for sin, describes a type of demon that contaminates people’s personal behavior. A Peccatum looks kind of like a giant octopus, but with seven tentacles instead of eight. Each tentacle represents one of the seven deadly sins—Anger, Greed, Pride, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, and Sloth—and can branch into an infinite number of tendrils. The tendrils snake out and wrap themselves around their victims, ensnaring them in whichever sin the Peccatum has sent forth. When a victim indulges in that sin, the demon feeds.

Bayside, like a lot of businesses, had paid for this Peccatum, buying it on the black market. A whiff of sin in the air can make a place feel edgy, a little dangerous, and a whole lot of fun. Bayside’s owner had told the sorcerer who conjured the demon to keep it small and to stunt all the tentacles except for Envy, Pride, and a thin strand of Lust. Those sins were good for business. But the Peccatum had gotten out of control, and now Gluttony and Sloth had taken over. How—who knew? Maybe someone showed up for their workout feeling lazy, calling Sloth forth from the demon. Maybe a nutritionist appointment made a client fixate on forbidden foods, stirring thoughts of Gluttony. Or maybe the sorcerer did a sloppy job of binding the demon. Since conjuring demons is illegal, anyone who buys demons on the black market takes that risk. No money-back guarantees from a sorcerer. If you complain, you might find a Harpy handling customer service.

As I pulled open the door and walked inside, the receptionist barely glanced at me. She leaned back in her chair, feet up on the desk, eating a cupcake. Frosting dotted the tip of her nose, and the number of empty wrappers that littered the floor around her would do any zombie proud. (Zombies are worldclass eaters. They don’t go after brains so much, but they adore junk food.)

“I’m Victory Vaughn,” I said. “I’m here to . . .” I glanced around. Business owners don’t like to advertise that their business is infested by demons, but there was no one else in the lobby. “I’m here to fix your Peccatum problem.”

“Yeah, whatever.” She waved a hand vaguely toward the club’s interior and let the empty cupcake wrapper fall to the floor. Then she sat forward and put her head down on the desk. Her snores riffled Post-it notes like a gentle breeze.

Great. Sleeping Beauty would be no help at all. I checked my watch. This was supposed to be a quick-in, quick-out job. Tonight my werewolf boyfriend, Kane, would be meeting my sister for the first time. In a few hours we were due at her home in Needham for dinner. For all kinds of reasons, being late would spell disaster.

I’d have to track down this Peccatum myself. I opened my senses to the demon plane. The room dimmed, and the stink of sins filled the air, making me cover my nose against the stench. Gluttony smells like flatulence and belches, Sloth like long-unwashed bodies caked in shit. The sounds of a Peccatum at work filled my ears: burps, openmouthed chewing, farts, sighs, snores—a symphony of gross bodily functions. The receptionist let loose a gentle burp in her sleep. Peccatum tendrils coiled around her, wrapping her tightly in their embrace. Gluttony and Sloth both gripped her. Gluttony is sickly yellow and sharp-edged, like a serrated knife to saw at the guts with hunger. Sloth is gray and more diffuse. It enfolded her like a warm, fuzzy blanket.

I let her sleep. Cutting off the tendrils would do nothing more than alert the Peccatum I was here. To kill the demon, I had to get its head.

Of course, “head” might not be the best term for the blobby main part of a Peccatum. It had no eyes, no ears, and no mouth, although it could sense people around it, mostly through their weaknesses. The demon’s main body was a roiling mass of oily mist, globbed up into a big ball of ugly.

I opened my duffel bag and removed a belt that looked like something a Wild West gunslinger would wear. But instead of guns, the holsters held water bottles. I hadn’t brought a pistol for this job; shooting the demon wouldn’t work. Although bronze is lethal to a Peccatum, as it is to any demon, the bullet passes through the thing’s misty head too quickly to do any lasting damage. The mist merely fills in the hole. It takes a thorough dousing with holy water or prolonged contact with a bronze blade to kill a Peccatum.

I put on the belt and fitted my liter bottles of holy water into the holsters. Then I strapped on two thigh sheaths, each loaded with a bronze dagger. I checked that everything was snug, the caps on the bottles tight. I was ready to track down the demon.

Unlike other demons, which manifest only after the sun goes down, Peccata are active around the clock. After all, sin is a 24/7 affair. But Peccata don’t like sunlight, so the sorcerer would have conjured it in a dark place, a