head slowly back to her. She had the satisfaction of watching him turn several shades lighter than his normal pale. He stepped away from the wall, turning toward her as she approached. He held up his hands in feigned innocence.
“Now, Juliana, I was just resting here. Waiting for my ride. I ain’t got nothin’ on me.” Travesty stuttered when he was nervous and the sentence took him three times longer to get through than it should have.
“Hand it over, Trav,” she told him and held out a hand, flicking her fingers impatiently.
His eyes darted between Michael and her but they both maintained their silence. Finally, Travesty caved. “Shit,” he said with a sigh. He pulled a small bag out of his pocket with two fingers and handed it over. He dropped it in her palm and then turned to the wall, putting palms flat against it, waiting to be frisked and arrested. She popped open the bag and sniffed. Ice.
Michael leaned against the wall watching the scene unfold before him with a wry twist of the lips. She smacked Travesty on the back of the head. “What are you doing dealing this stuff?” She slipped the bag into her pocket and frisked him. Ice got its name not only from its pale blue color, but from the effect it had on the user. This particular combo of drugs and magic literally made the blood run cold. The user detached from reality as the synapses in his brain numbed and shut down. Those who got a bad batch or overindulged had been known to freeze to death in hundred-degree weather.
“Turn around,” she said, stepping back. “Believe it or not, I’m not here to bust you. I need some information.”
Hope blossomed on his face, making her smile. Very rarely she let him off the hook if he proved to be useful. Today she just didn’t want to mess with him. She had a demon to find. “You see anything yesterday?”
“You mean when the mages had everything shut down?”
She nodded.
“Maybe. Just what was I supposed to be noticing?”
“Demon.”
He scratched his chin. “One of my customers was talking about zombies. I told him that was nuts, we ain’t got no zombies around here. Haven’t had for ages. But someone fighting a demon compulsion might look like one from a distance, I guess.”
She decided not to mention that the gaping hole in the host’s head probably contributed to the misidentification. She wanted to talk to the customer, but knew Travesty wouldn’t give her a name. “Anything else?”
He shook his head. “Not really. You know how things are around here.”
“All right, Trav. I guess it’s good enough for today. Quit dealing this crap would you? You’re too smart for that.”
“Whatever you say.” He took a couple of steps away and then turned back. “There’s something else but you probably already know. That zombie, or whatever it was, was carrying around a body. My client said it looked like something had been eating it.”
She stared after him as he walked away, her chest feeling like it’d been stepped on. Her mind tried to process the information it had just been handed. The host was carrying a corpse that looked like it had been gnawed on. A body with a gaping hole in its head maybe? The demon hadn’t carried a body when it left her. But Thomas had carried one back.
Michael placed a warm hand on her back. “What is it? Breathe.”
She held her hands out slightly to the side and shook them as she gulped air. “Oh, no...no, no, no.”
She didn’t answer him. Didn’t want to put voice to her fears. It couldn’t be true. This was so bad, so extraordinarily, horribly bad. Her fingers fumbled in her pocket as she struggled to get her phone out. With trembling fingers she called James. “Take Sara and Rachel and go to the Apocryphan. Stay there until I call you.”
“What’s going on? Do you need any help?”
She glanced at Michael. “I have plenty. Just take care of our girls.”
Next she typed out a text to Thomas, having to retype several of the letters. She read it over and hit send:
I know what you are.
Moments later, the phone rang—Thomas. She put him on speaker.
“Hello, Juliana.” His low voice wrapped around her like always.
“I’ve been trying to call.”
There was a long pause. “I’ve been...busy.”
“Busy doing what exactly?”
“And why should I share that information with you? You have no authority over me.” His tone was short, clipped.
“I know I don’t.” She kept her voice calm, sweet, betraying none of her inner turmoil. “I was just curious. Don’t be mad.”
He sighed. “I’m not mad. I’m just tired.”
That sounded like Thomas and it made her pause. She couldn’t be wrong about this, could she? “I want to see you. Where are you?”
“Why is it that you are suddenly so concerned about my whereabouts and what I’m up to?”
“Just thought I’d come pick you up so we could go demon hunting.” A noise in the background made her breath catch. She looked at Michael. He shook his head, evidently not hearing what she had. “Was that a scream?” she asked.
“The game is over so soon? How disappointing. Come find me then, Hound. I’ll be waiting.” Then there was the familiar click of a disconnected call.
She snapped her phone shut and headed back down Michael’s alley. “Where’s your car?”
Michael furrowed his brow. “What?”
She gripped his arms in her hands and shook once to get his attention. “Your car.”
“Here. It’s here.” He went over to pound on a large double door set a few feet from the one she’d used earlier. The Neanderthal opened it a crack until he saw Michael. Both doors swung open wide. As usual, Michael owned some low-slung little red sports car she couldn’t identify.
She walked to the driver’s side. “Keys?”
“In the ignition.”
“Where’s he staying?” she asked as she slid behind the wheel.
“At the house.” Michael got in on the other side.
Of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be? She floored the accelerator and flew backward down the alley and into the street. Michael gripped the dashboard, his knuckles white. He closed his eyes as she shifted into first and floored it again.
“I’d forgotten about your driving.” He sounded ill. He cursed when she darted between a couple of midsized sedans. She turned on the highway away from the maze of side streets. Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth together.
“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
She nodded.
“Shit.” He sat there for a moment. She wasn’t sure if he was done talking or bracing himself to see if she was going to stop for the snarl of traffic in front of them. She didn’t. She jerked the wheel to the right and drove half on the shoulder, half on the grass until she got to their exit.
Once she was back on the pavement, he took a deep breath and said, “So we have a master vampire playing host to a first-level demon. What are we going to do about it?”
“Find him.” It wasn’t much of a plan, but she didn’t know what else to say. Nathaniel was already dead and based on the scream she heard over the phone, the demon was adding to the body count. Fear and desperation dug their claws into her heart, each fighting for dominance over the other.
Her mate was infested, demon-ridden. And with a host like Thomas, the demon would be near impossible to stop. Her only hope lay in the thought that perhaps Thomas was strong enough to fight the demon. That he could
