Darkness Fair (The Dark Cycle Book 2) (21 page)

I think about what Aidan’s father said in the hall at the club, how my destiny is changing, how it’s heartbreak and emptiness now, and I believe it. I wholeheartedly believe it. I am walking rejection. I’m the one who everyone will befriend but never love. I’m the girl on the fringe, looking in the window and wishing for warmth.

Maybe it’s time to go back to the plastic world where I belong—the world of shopping and bitchy gossip and alcohol-fueled parties—where no one feels anything real.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Aidan

Hanna and I talk for several hours after my shower. Well, I talk and she listens, as I spill my guts about Kara and everything else, about how helpless I feel.

She knows about Eric now—that becomes clear quickly. Apparently, he decided to tell her everything the other night. He obviously cares about her, and if the constant awkward pauses in our conversation about their reunion are any indication, the making up included more than just
talk
.

I want to ask her how she can love a guy who’s so crusty, but I guess Hanna has a soft enough heart for both of them. And now that Eric’s come clean, she understands my role and why he watches over me. Which means I’ve gained another ally, and at this point I desperately need one.

After I refuse to crash in the warehouse’s back apartment, Hanna insists I sleep in the warehouse itself. She loans that apartment out to clients sometimes, and I’m not about to take a free ride while also hurting business. So she sets up a cot in the back of the vault and gives me keys to the bathrooms on the other side of the building. It’s a much sweeter setup than I ever had before—before LA Paranormal, anyway.

She says she can give me a couple days before she calls Sid, but she reminds me that he’s my legal guardian, and he deserves to know where I am. Which he does, he’s earned that. So I promise her that I’ll call him and let him know that I’m all right.

Meanwhile, it’s past time to really start figuring out my power, to see how far I can take it. I know that I can resurrect people, but I also know that doing so depletes my abilities. Maybe there’s a more efficient way to harness the power and make it go further. I’ll definitely need to conserve it if I’m going to find Ava’s soul and awaken her, all while fighting off some possessive dominion angel.

There’s a spot west of Sunset that’s a nice thick feeding ground for demons. Hookers, addicts, and loads of twisted energy to draw in the other side. So I start making my way to that area. A few bus changes and a couple blocks later, and I’m almost to where the energy starts to thicken and it’s tougher to breathe without tasting waste on my tongue. Depression and fear are palpable in the bodies that walk past or hide in the shadows of storefronts and doorways.

I see two ghosts along the way—not what I’m looking for, though. I pass a demon that’s chained to a guy who’s handing out flyers for something that looks like a church that worships snakes. Or maybe worms—the artwork is pretty bad. I don’t want to mess with bound demons, though—a demon that’s owned by a human. Or possessing demons, for that matter. I pass two females—arguing over a guy—who are practically leaking sulfur they’re so full of demons. I need a creature that’ll follow me, a feeder or a lurker. Easy prey.

I come around a corner and see the perfect specimen, across the street from a strip club entrance.

Its skin is an odd pale blue, with dark veins visible through the surface. The head is small and thin, tiny feelers poking out from under the chin and what would be the hairline—if it had hair. The eyes are slits, three of them stacked low on the forehead, just above the over-large nose. The creature is only about three feet tall, with transparent, fly-like wings hanging from its back. It’s fairly mundane as demons go, even though I’m pretty sure it has a nice maw of sharp silver teeth behind those pale lips. Still, it’ll be good practice.

My seal burns on my chest as I walk closer, studying it. I pull out my dagger and make my way across the street, to the left of the demon’s human target, so the guy won’t see my blade. The demon isn’t attached to the young man’s skin or chained to him, so it’s a free agent for now. Or it could be working for a higher-up demon.

The guy is about my age, and his life hasn’t been kind. His soul is wrecked. He’s got a ton of handprints covering it, several of them red around his neck. There’s a black onyx mark that reads
slave
in demon tongue on his forehead. And as I move closer, I smell the energy of a junkie.

He’s shaking a little, fidgeting with his too-tight shirt, like he’s trying to show off more of his thin, pale chest. When he sees me, his features shift, trying to hide the fear in his skin, but I feel it, prickling around me. Strong.

“Hey,” he says, his voice high and light. “You seem lonely.” The blue demon bug turns to see where the guy’s looking, but its eyes go this way and that, not seeing me.

“Hi,” I say, coming up to stand a few feet from the demon, who’s now making a face that could be a frown. “What’s your name?” I ask the guy.

He bites his lips; they have gloss on them. “I’m Scarlet.” He’s wearing a red shirt—a woman’s blouse.

“Hey, Scarlet. Do you maybe want to get something to eat?” I motion behind me to where I think there’s a twenty-four-hour diner.

He eyes me, cautiously. “I don’t wanna lose my spot. What’s your poison?”

Poison? I’m not sure if he’s trying to sell me drugs or himself. I just want to get him away from the demon. “I’ll pay,” I say, holding up a twenty. The dagger is still tucked away at my other side where he can’t see it. Hopefully.

“I only do one hand-off for that.” He doesn’t seem pleased but he’s not walking away.

My gut sinks, thinking of how this kid’s night probably goes, normally. Give a john his body for an hour, then go buy a few rocks of meth to turn numb, lather, rinse, repeat. He’s probably only sixteen or so, by the look of him up close. He isn’t going to live past twenty out here.

I decide to be honest. “Listen, Scarlet. You’re about to see something very weird, but don’t be scared, okay?”

His shadowed eyes widen.

I pull my amulet necklace over my head and hand it to him. “Can you just hold this for a second?”

The blue demon bug hisses and flies back as I appear two feet away.

“Don’t run off, okay?” I say to Scarlet. “I need that back.”

He just nods slowly, watching me walk toward what appears, to him, to be nothing.

“Okay, sparky,” I say to the demon. “Let’s see what you can do.”

The familiar urge to kill seeps into my blood as I watch the creature round its back like it’s trying to look bigger. Steam rises from my arm, and my chest aches with the burn of my seal, but I clench my insides and try to keep my mark from sparking to life.

My powers seem as hungry and awake as ever at the moment. Maybe even more so, as if my resurrection rebooted them. But I need to hold the fire in as long as possible. I need to figure out how it feels to control it and how I can conserve it better so I don’t end up depleted halfway through a fight.

At the moment, it feels like I’m holding back a freight train.

The demon flutters up, flying high enough to face me. Its buzzing wings press air into me that smells like rot and stings my skin like needles. And then I realize there are actual needles pricking my skin. Red dots appear all over me, like bleeding pox. Thin silver splinters fall away,
tink
ing onto the ground once they hit their mark.

Scarlet must feel it, too, because he squirms and starts itching at the track marks running up his arm.

I hold my hand out to protect my eyes, the jabs sparking all over my body as the tiny darts hit harder and deeper. Time to stop holding the freight train in.

I let go of my insides, releasing the power. It surges into my muscles, my skin, and steals the breath from my lungs.

Something pops at the air and sends Scarlet tumbling back, ass to concrete, just as my mark surges to life with a
whoosh
of heated air, shoving the demon back in a rush.

I grab it by the ankle before it gets out of range and yank. The wings fold up, stopping their onslaught. The body arches and thuds into the ground, the skull hitting the sidewalk. It barely stuns the creature, but it gives me the perfect angle.

I raise the silver dagger, its light casting over the demon’s blue skin, turning it green. A fleeting urge to rip the bastard’s wings off zips through me, but instead, I slide the blade right into its middle eye slit.

Black ooze gushes out before the body bursts into flames, then disappears in another
pop
.

I glance over at Scarlet, trying to catch my breath. He’s gaping at the ground where my dagger blade is half-buried in the cement.

He gets back up on his feet, unsteady, and turns his eyes to me and my bloody skin. “Fuck ten elephants, what the hell am I on?”

I start wiping the blood off my face and arms with the bottom of my T-shirt. “Told you it’d be nuts.” I pull out the dagger from the cement, then slap the blade against my leg to break off the rest of the black clay that was the demon’s blood. “You wanna get that meal now?”

Scarlet blinks at me as I slide the sort-of clean knife into my back pocket. He doesn’t speak but he doesn’t run, either. When I walk over to him, holding my hand out for my amulet, he backs up a step and presses it to his chest. “What are you?”

I lower my hand and look at him. “I’m Aidan. And I’m dying for a soda. Do you want one or what? I think there’s a diner a few blocks from here.”

He licks his lips and seems to consider. Then he holds out my necklace. “Can I have some Jack in mine? I think I need it.”

I laugh and slip the amulet back over my head. “How about a little ice cream instead?”

“Big spender, huh? Can the lady have a cherry, too?”

“The lady can buy whatever she’d like.”

He raises his brow. “How much do you cost, handsome?”

“I’m not for sale,” I say, starting to walk down the street, heading for the diner.
I’m taken
. His question makes the weight of not being near Kara settle back on my shoulders. Panic grips me as I think of how my absence is probably hurting her. I can’t forget why I’m out here on this cold night, instead of home beside her.

“Priceless, then,” he says in a dreamy voice as he comes up next to me and brushes dirt from my shoulder, knocking off a chunk of blackened demon too, even though he can’t see it.

I give him a sideways smile and we walk the rest of the way in silence.

Scarlet’s actual name is Raul. As we walk into the brightly lit diner, he confesses that he uses a new name every night, depending on where he’s hanging around and what shirt he’s wearing. We sit and he eats a double-bacon cheeseburger and fries and I sip my soda. He’s actually great company, talking a lot so I don’t have to. He tells me about his family—mother, five sisters, and grandmother in Guatemala. They sent him with a coyote ten years ago, when he was six, and he hasn’t heard from them since. But he tells me about each of them in detail. He spends about an hour weaving tales about his pet parrot and bemoaning how much he misses it.

For a guy with so many red handprints on his neck and track marks up his arm, he seems fairly chipper. Maybe he’s just glad to be filling his stomach; at the speed he’s ingesting his burger, I’d say he doesn’t chomp down double-bacon anything very often.

He takes a sip from his drink as he studies my markings. After he swallows, he asks, “So, you’re like magical or something?”

I’m surprised he didn’t ask about it sooner. But how do I explain what I am? I don’t even know. “I’m just me.”

He cocks his eyebrow. “You were a lit-up bastard back there.”

I decide honesty’s worked so far, so I just say, “I don’t really know what I am.”

He nods, like he’s accepting the answer, and pops a fry into his mouth.

“So, where’re you crashing?” I ask, trying to sound like I’m being casual. Really, I want to find out if he’s going to be all right; I’m not sure why that demon was with him.

He eats the last three fries on his plate and pushes it away before answering. “Listen, I’m not someone you’d be wantin’ in your life, sweetie.”

“Really, why’s that?” I lean back in the booth, folding my arms across my chest.

He laughs. “Oh honey, you’re too slick to know what’s good for you.” He waves out the window at the city streets. “The less time your lovely ass spends in this town, the better.”

I smile at him, totally floored that he thinks I’m some kind of uptown boy. “I used to crash near the tracks.”

He looks at me like he doesn’t believe me.

“I set up in an empty warehouse for a while; it had a nice loft,” I continue. “The owner came around, though, and I almost got caught, so I split. And then there was the alley behind the flower shop.” I smile, watching his face turn from incredulity to amazement.

“What sorta gig you got that took you from alleys to designer cotton?” He nods to my Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. Sid is insanely fond of shopping and buys stuff way higher on the scale than he needs to. Fruit of the Loom would’ve been fine. Especially considering the way I’ve been going through clothes lately.

“I fell into a gig,” I say. “They pay in clothes.” And trouble. Raul seems interested and opens his mouth to ask another question, but I stand up before he can get it out. The less he knows about me, the better. “I’ve gotta jet, but I’ll be around. You can find me at SubZero if you ever need anything.”

He blinks up at me as I take the check and hold out a hand to shake. He hesitates but takes it after a second.

A flash of red eyes and the sound of running feet and gasping breath bursts into my consciousness before he pulls back.