Scorched

neighborhood.” As far as he could tell, it had taken around six months to find a way out of the Castle. He’d stumbled on an open portal, a piece of pure dumb luck.

He’d escaped once. He could do it again. This time at least he knew the location of the door. The trick would be getting it open. Then, a heartfelt discussion with the Vampire Caravelli.

He stopped abruptly, his body reacting before he even knew why. Perfectly still, he listened. His ears strained to catch the sound again. Behind him. Faint, but growing. Scuff scuff scuff.

He turned. A man was running toward him—one that Mac knew all too well. Good ol‘ Guardsman Bran. A feeling of sour anger washed through Mac, adding old resentments to his already foul mood.

As if the day wasn’t bad enough, an unholy grin of pleasure split Bran’s face, the look of a bully finding new prey. Mac could run, maybe hide, but before he even reviewed his options, Bran was mere feet away and drawing a short sword.

Back in the Castle five friggin’ minutes and I‘m in the middle of an ass-kicking. Mac wiped a sudden sweat from his face. Same old Club Dread.

Mac circled his opponent, who mirrored his low, watchful crouch. Bran was a huge, bare-armed hulk covered with spiraling blue tattoos. He stank like old leather shut up in an attic trunk for far too long. A black braid swung past the man’s hips as he moved, a dark slash against the scarlet and gold silk of his tunic.

Guardsman Bran was one scary, ugly mother.

Shadows ate at the ceiling and surrounding passageways, giving the illusion there was no reality beyond the circle of their combat. The solitary sound in the corridor was the shuffling of their feet on the stone floor. Torchlight played along Bran’s short sword, reminding Mac the guardsman was armed and he wasn’t.

Sharp objects mattered, but Mac’s pulse roared in his head, drowning out fear with every heartbeat. He felt drunk, high, complete, even relieved. He was ready to pound this grunt and love every minute of it. Kill or die. The shredded remainder of his demon side had finally slipped its leash.

Mac lunged. Bran was quick, blocking him, slashing at Mac’s ribs—but Mac was supernaturally fast, dancing aside before the blade could land.

They sprang apart, circling again.

“Nice to see you, too,” Mac said with a taunting grin. Without warning, he changed direction, but Bran followed the sudden shift with the poise of a gymnast. Mac licked his lips, his mouth dry from breathing hard. “Interesting tatts. Still working the Bronze Age look?”

“Be silent.” Bran curled his lip, his white teeth and pale skin making him look more like a vampire than a guardsman. “I found you, fugitive. No one escapes twice.”

“C’mon, saying that’s just tempting fate.”

They closed again, grappling and snarling. Bran swept Mac’s feet from under him, but they both fell, Mac on top. Mac’s vision turned white, then red with bloodlust and rage. With his knee on Bran’s throat, Mac smashed the guardsman’s sword hand into the stone floor, pounding until Bran’s fingers let go of the hilt.

Bran surged, tossing Mac off. Rolling to his back, Mac brought his feet up just in time to catch Bran in the chest with a satisfying thump. The guardsman stumbled, air whooshing from his lungs. Mac flipped to his feet, running two steps to sink a hard, knuckle-bruising shot to Bran’s midriff. The man was solid as granite, but no match. Bran doubled over. Mac grabbed the sword and brought the hilt down with a smack, catching the guardsman behind his left ear. Bran dropped like a stone in a face-flat sprawl at Mac’s feet.

The thump of his fall, like so much dirty laundry, echoed in the cavernous dark. Mac bent, feeling for a pulse. The guardsman was still alive but would be out for a good long time.

As he rose, Mac felt the surge of his own blood, the tingle and rush of human life in every limb. Behind it pulsed the demon, gleeful—lustful—at the prospect of even more violence. Hunger. The weight of the sword was a suggestion, the hilt hard and perfect in his greedy palm. There were so many ways to kill. A quick blade in the spine. The slow agony of a gut wound.

Gritting his teeth, Mac backed away. I’m still too much a cop to kill a man when he’s down. Even this one. He clutched at that thought, holding it like a talisman that would preserve his slipping humanity.

But in the Castle, every moment was fight or die. Here, he needed his demon side to survive. Staying human would be a losing battle. I have to get out of here, or lose my soul again.

A flicker at the edge of his vision made him look up, reflexes poised.

Mac glimpsed a face, all wide eyes and pointed chin. It was a woman, barely more than a girl, with a thick fall of midnight hair long past her waist. Every line of her thin body looked startled.

All was silent but for the sound of Bran’s faint, slow breathing. The woman just stared, her mouth pulled down at the corners.

She’s afraid. He stepped over Bran and toward the woman. With a birdlike hop, she whisked around the cor-ner. After a second’s hesitation, Mac sprinted after her. Until he knew whether she was running from simple fear or running to get Bran’s friends, he couldn’t let her get away.

By the time he got to the corner, she was already out of sight, but he could smell a trace of sweet perfume. He followed it, mapping this new direction in his mind so he could retrace his steps.

She hadn’t gone far, only down another turning. There she hovered, her back to Mac, peering anxiously around the far corner. He came up behind her, his movements utterly silent.

He hadn’t realized how much noise a human made— breathing, rustling, swallowing—until, as a demon, he’d stopped. He’d made no sound, no scent, moved no air when he passed by. Now, partially human again, he could switch the ability on or off. Going stealth mode freaked him out a bit, but it came in handy.

He was close enough now to see the woman clearly. Her dress fell to the floor and was made of a heavy indigo fabric worn threadbare along the hem. She was small—barely five feet, small-boned, and almost frail. He could have picked her up in one hand. Most of her weight was surely in that thick, straight hair.

Just when he was close enough to notice a strip of dusty lace peeking out from beneath her skirt, her shoulders stiffened. She’d made him. Soundless or not, even demons couldn’t hide from that sixth-sense survival instinct that makes a deer run before the cougar breaks cover.

She whipped around to face him, eyes wide with fear, white edging their deep blue centers. With the jerking motion of a cartoon character, she looked around the corner again, then back to him. Caught between two bad choices.

“What’s there?” Mac asked in a quiet voice, wondering whether she spoke English. The Castle didn’t have a universal language, unless one counted despair.

“More guardsmen,” she answered, almost whispering.

Not going to warn Bran’s friends, then.

“Three of them, heading toward their quarters.” Her words lilted. Irish, perhaps? She searched his face, clearly measuring the level of threat he presented. “Who are you?”

“Conall Macmillan, ma’am.” Somehow it seemed right to use his best manners, as if the shade of his great-grandmother was cuffing him on the ear. “At your service.”

“At my service, now, is it?” There was a flash of irony in her eyes. “And how is it that anyone who defeats a guardsman would serve the likes of me? Guardsmen are made stronger than us. We can’t beat them, and yet there you were looming over Bran’s broken body.”

Uncertainty squeezed Mac’s chest. He didn’t want to hear from a pretty woman how he wasn’t quite normal, much less that he loomed. “I’m just passing through. Maybe the rules don’t apply to me.”

Her gaze caught his, deadly serious. “No one just passes through here.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“You have a key, then.” She said it naturally, as if it was no great marvel.

There’s a key? Maybe more than one? Mac didn’t answer, wondering what else she might reveal.

“Well, then.” She was calming down, but still looked like she was expecting a dirty trick. “That would answer why I’ve never seen you before.”

“I hope that means you wouldn’t forget me if you had.” He sneaked a glance at the neckline of her dress. Her low-cut gown was laced up the front, the tight crisscross of ribbons making the most of her slender shape.