Demon Marked

“What?”

“Did he sense that Madelyn was a demon? Is that why she killed him?” She flicked on the radio and adjusted the heat, turning the temperature all the way to high. “She did, didn’t she?”

Goddammit. It was his fault, though. He had to do a better job of guarding his responses. “Yes.”

“She killed more than one?”

“No.”

Not that he knew of. One had been enough—and she’d milked it for years. I don’t think it’s a good idea to buy another pet, love, until I’m certain you’ve learned to care for your furry friends a little better. You don’t want him to end up like poor Ringo, do you?

“Was she afraid it would reveal her true nature? Did he bark at her, like in Terminator?” Ash frowned. “They don’t bark at me.”

“That’s because you’re a demon, not a killer robot.” Though Nicholas had to admit he’d once wondered the same thing. He wouldn’t have ever used a dog to help him find Madelyn, not after what she’d done—but he’d wondered why animals didn’t know. He’d only learned the answer after Rosalia had told him. “What is a dog supposed to sense? They don’t have psychic abilities. And you don’t even have an odor, nothing to warn them.”

So they’d come up to her, lick her, and look for love until she broke their necks. Humans didn’t fare much better when they trusted demons, but at least their bones remained intact. Nicholas assumed that the only reason demons didn’t go around killing animals for the fun of it was because they needed to do the same thing Ash wanted to do: appear normal. Too many dead animals would raise suspicions.

That point apparently swept right past the demon. She looked down at herself, as if in confusion. “I don’t have an odor?”

“No.”

She didn’t take his word for it. Tugging out the front of her hooded sweatshirt, she dipped her nose beneath the neckline and sniffed. Jesus Christ. Suddenly, Nicholas didn’t know whether to laugh or to go for some pansy-ass, horrified reaction. What the hell was that? If she wanted to appear normal, sniffing herself in public wouldn’t help her cause.

She didn’t seem to notice his struggle any more than she’d been aware of her gaffe. “I do have an odor,” she said. “But I can barely smell it. It’s nothing like yours.”

His odor? God. He wouldn’t ask. She didn’t give him a chance to, anyway.

“Are all demons that obvious, then?”

He didn’t follow. “What?”

“Killing dogs. It seems cliche.”

“Tell that to an eight-year-old boy, and see how much a cliche matters. They do what works—and they do it again and again.”

And he’d said “they,” as if Ash wasn’t included in their number. Maybe that was her game: making him believe that she was different, putting him off guard.

It wouldn’t happen.

“I didn’t say it wouldn’t be effective. It’s just not original. And if I think it’s cliche, when my only experience with demons is what seems familiar from books and movies, then the whole ‘killing a boy’s dog’ thing must be really tired.”

An odd way to come around to it, but she wasn’t wrong. “So it is,” he agreed.

“I’d rather be a clever demon. Perhaps that’s why it is taking me so long to come up with a plot against you. My standards are too high.”

Nicholas bit back his laugh. Damn it. How did she turn his anger and suspicion around so easily? In all probability, she was plotting to destroy him. He ought to be preparing for it, not finding humor in it.

“Have you been trying to think up many plots?”

“Not really.” She gave him a sideways glance. “It ought to be simpler now, knowing that I should think of something cliche. And you never answered me: Are demons all so obvious?”

“It’s not so obvious,” he said. “Not when there are so many humans doing the same things that you demons do.”

“Oh. So what’s one more bit of evil here and there?”

“Yes. They hide in plain sight.”

“Then how will we find Madelyn? How can you tell demons from humans unless they give themselves away?” She paused. “How did you realize she was a demon in the first place? You didn’t know it when she killed Rachel, and you haven’t seen her since that night.”

No, he hadn’t. “I spent a lot of money.”

“Oh, really? How did that help? Is there a code printed on the back of a thousand-dollar bill, like something out of a Dan Brown novel?”

Was she irritated? He couldn’t be certain. She didn’t show enough emotion to categorize her response as snippy, but with just a little more heat he might have. A little drier, and it might have been sarcasm. Either way, she obviously didn’t appreciate indirect answers—or attempts to evade an answer.

Interesting. Demons were all about wordplay and obfuscation. They loved to twist words or give them double meanings. Ash didn’t. At least, not in any way that Nicholas recognized. Every word from Madelyn’s tongue had dripped with sweet poison, killing his father before she’d turned it on Nicholas. Yet even now, when he thought Ash might be irritated, she didn’t attack him. Had she forgotten how to do that, too?

He could easily find out. “She and Rachel vanished. Poof! Gone. For a while, I’d wondered if I’d snapped. Even my therapist thought I might have had a psychotic break—”

“You have a therapist?”

And she’d jumped right on it. What would come next? Telling him that he possessed a weak mind and spirit? That he wasn’t a real man?

He hoped she’d try. He’d better know how to deal with her if she began responding like every other demon.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “With a mother like Madelyn, I needed one.”

“For how long?”

“Since I came to the States at fifteen.”

Thanks to his father, he’d had dual citizenship and enough money to escape Madelyn’s influence. He wouldn’t take the same way out his father had, however—and from the moment he’d stepped off the plane, he’d been planning how to return and destroy her. But Nicholas had also known that Madelyn had already managed to poison him with her words and her neglect, and that if he didn’t seek help digging out the rot, he’d end up like his father, anyway.

Madelyn would have called his reliance on a therapist weak; he saw it as defiance and another form of vengeance. Despite everything she’d done, Madelyn wouldn’t break him.

“You’ve had the same therapist for twenty years?”

“Yes.”

“And he—Or is it she?”

“She.”

Only by mistake. At fifteen, he hadn’t wanted a thing to do with women, especially not someone the same age as his mother. So he’d picked Leslie Sinclair out of a directory, but when the appointment came, had discovered a woman with a man’s name. Good manners had kept him on the couch, but by the end of the session, she hadn’t had to twist his arm to return.

Now, Nicholas believed that Leslie hadn’t just saved his life—she’d probably nipped some nascent misogyny in the bud. Just as well. According to many people he’d worked with or whose companies he’d ripped apart, Nicholas was already enough of a dick. No need to add woman hating to his list of sins.

“Does she know you’re obsessed with revenge?”

“Of course.”

Although the reason behind that revenge had changed over time. As a fifteen-year-old boy, it had been born