Nameless: The Darkness Comes (21 page)

Chapter Forty-
Two

Seth was right about the rain. It started when I was about half a mile from the house. I could feel the anger on my face and my mascara was surely running. I had to look like a lunatic.

I snorted.
The irony of it was that I had been trying so hard to be normal. Not just lately, but always. Life isn’t kind to outcasts, and nobody is on the fringes more than the Demon Girl. And Seth knew? Had caused it.

I couldn’t think about it anymore.
My head would explode, and I would murder my brother. Besides that, Seth was the only person in the world I had at the moment. No matter how angry I may have been, I still loved him.

Although there are different levels of love, and
he’d just dropped down a few hundred pegs. Bottom rung love. Subterranean love.

A demon wisped by.
It had the body of human and the head of a dog. Great. Just what I needed: another reminder of demonic Lydia’s wolf murderer. Like that scene hadn’t already played itself out in my head a zillion times today.

Mouth did try to warn me,
I thought, and suddenly I knew what I had to do. Wandering around in the cold rain wasn’t going to do me or my temper any good. I had something better in mind.

“Hey, Anubis,” I shouted to the demon.
It turned its strange canine eyes on me.

“Yeah, you. I have a question about something that happened to a friend.
Think you can answer it?”

It drifted close.
Too close. Rain dripped off its muzzle and ran down its fur. I wanted to pull away and give myself some space, but I didn’t want to appear intimidated, so I glared instead.

“Why would I help you, Luna?
You are so disdainful of my kind.”

I sighed.
Of course it knew me. They all knew me. I was a dark superstar.

“Not all of your kind, dog-face.
I actually want to help one of you. I think he may be in trouble.”

“And I care because?”

“Uh, because demons of a feather must stick together?”

He barked, showing yellow teeth that made my breath catch in my throat. Hopefully he couldn’t hear it under the rain.

“I don’t think so.”
He closed his eyes, sniffed the air. “Mmm. You smell delicious. Perhaps I should do all of us a favor and put you out of your misery.”

That gave me an idea.

“Really? Delicious? How delicious?”

He whimpered, more dog than man.

“That delicious? What if I told you I have the Mark? Your precious demon Tracing?”

His tongue ran around his chops.
Gross.

“What if I also told you
—”

“Yes?”

“That if you give me the information I need, I’ll let you feel the Tracing?”

His eyes snapped open, pupils dilated.

“But,” I said, and held my hand up, “only for five seconds. If you don’t back off in five seconds, we’re going to have a problem. Got it?”

His face was sly.
“Oh, five seconds will be more than enough.”

So he thought. He wasn’t counting on my willpower or my anger.

“Let me see it,” he whined. “Let me see the Mark.”

“Uh
, uh, uh.” I wagged my finger. “Information first. Do we have a deal?”

He sneezed.
“Deal.”

Talk about making a deal with the devil.
I pushed my soaking hair behind my ears. “Okay, so here it is. My demon buddy was in the middle of giving me DL on something, when—”

“DL
?”

Oh yeah.
This guy was more into Ra than the Urban Dictionary. “He was giving me the down-low. Some advice. A tip. Whatever.”

“All right.”
His eyes were half closed. He was in La-La Land, deep in fantasies of possessing my soul and riding around in my body until it fell apart like the piece of meat that it was. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that chilled me.

“
Hey, Fang, I’m onto you and your little doggie desires. But no info, no Marky Mark, dig?”

“I understand.”

“Okay. So anyway, in the middle of telling me this information, he started to really have a hard time. Struggle. Couldn’t get the words out. And then—”

The demon interrupted.
“He physically couldn’t get the words out? As if he was choking?”

“Yes! And then he started going into convulsions.
It was absolutely terrifying. What can cause that sort of damage to a demon?”

He shook his head, water flinging everywhere.
“I would rather not say.”

“But you know.”

“I suspect, yes. But it is not something I care to share. Least of all with a
human.
”

I shrugged nonchalantly.
“Hey, no skin off my nose. I was just curious. See ya later. My deliciousness and I will take ourselves elsewhere.”

I turned to walk away.

“Wait!”

Right on cue. I paused, looked over my shoulder. “What?”

“
The Mark.”

“No go.
I said you could touch the Tracing if you gave me info. You didn’t give me a thing. Now back off before I call the pound.”

I started walking again, my boots splashing through the puddles.
I knew what he was thinking. Obviously he didn’t want to tell me what he knew, but the draw of the Tracing between my shoulder blades was too strong. And if he could slide his fingers in there, he’d most likely be able to take over my soul, so he thought. More than that, he’d be able control my body. He didn’t know I knew how to resist him, that I was stronger than he suspected. That would come as a nice surprise.

I stretched exaggeratedly, the muscles rolling under my skin.
I popped my neck, and yawned. Oh, to be able to do such things. Oh, to walk down the street and have normal, everyday people see him. Oh, the power.

“I’ll tell you what you want to know.
I need the Mark. I have to dig my claws into it.”

“Spill,” I told him. “What was happening to my friend?”

He chuffed, his black nose quivering. “He didn’t happen to be telling you about another demon, did he? Somebody more powerful than he?”

I thought.
“He was telling me to ask about someone called the Tiptoe Shadow. Do you know who he is?”

His long ear flopped in irritation.
“How am I supposed to know? You humans and your silly names. That isn’t important. What’s important is that he was obviously betraying one of the Others.”

This had my attention.
“The Others?”

He growled.
“The Others, the Builders, the Elders. Older than time, creators of all of us. You can’t betray the Others. It’s—”

“What, a sin?
Don’t make me laugh.”

You never want to feel the full hate of a demon’s glare. I was experiencing it now.
“Tread carefully, human. You know not of what you speak. There are laws, and they must not be broken.”

I nodded grudgingly.
“Gotcha. So betraying the Others. Betraying them how? He just wanted to me to learn about this guy, that’s all. How can that be such a bad thing?”

“We do not speak of those higher in our line.
It is forbidden.”

I started.
“In your line? Like, you guys are sired or something?”

“Merely soldiers.
There is a rank. We do not challenge or betray those who come before. There is a strict penalty.”

I grew cold, and it wasn’t from the rain.
“What kind of penalty?”

“I have said too much.
The Mark, Luna. Do not forget we made a deal.”

I wasn’t going to get any more out of him, but this was
enough. I was pretty sure I knew where Mouth was. And I wasn’t looking forward to going after him. And honestly? I wasn’t looking forward to this impending scuffle with Old Yeller here, either.

I shrugged out of my leather jacket, turned around and pulled up my shirt.
He moaned and ran his hands over the throbbing wound between my shoulders.

“I keep my promises.
And don’t you forget you only have five seconds, or I’m gonna get real angry. Got that? Go.”

His fingers dove into
the Mark with such violence that I was taken by surprise. I hadn’t expected him to turn solid so quickly. He pushed me down to the sidewalk, his knee in the small of my back.

“Hey
,” I tried to shout, but couldn’t get the word out. I was choking on the rainwater that ran in streams down the sidewalk. This wasn’t going how I had planned.

“Your soul, it’s so inviting. It wants to be taken, don’t you see?”
He did his dog-moan again, and I struggled against him. I felt the top layer of my spirit peel away. How had he gotten through so fast? Why were my defenses so thin?

“Enough! Your five seconds are up
.” He didn’t move, but leaned into the Tracing with his full weight. I screamed. Another layer of soul was rent. I felt anger and desire and a terrifying sense of need fill my body. Those weren’t my emotions. They were coming from him.

“Uninvited!” I shrieked. “Uninvited
.” I was panicking. I didn’t expect to be pinned underneath him; that changed everything. How was I supposed to fight my way out of it when I was stuck in a vulnerable position like this?

“What a wonderful surprise you’re turning out to be,” he murmured in my ear.
“After all of these years, who knew I would have a body again? And you were so willing to hand it over. It really wasn’t a struggle at all.”

Another layer of soul tore apart, shredding like fabric.
I could almost hear it. Nobody had ever dug down this deep. I bucked, tried to yank him off of me, but he was too heavy. He was panting, his breath hot and steaming in the weather. I felt a wildness build up in me, his personality merging with my own. I wanted to sink my teeth into warm flesh until blood ran across my tongue.

“That’s right,” he said.
“That’s what we’ll do. Who first, Luna? Shall we find a store with strangers? Shall we go back to your house and lap the blood from the throat of your brother?”

I closed my eyes in want.
That sounded so good. So good.

“Ah, I see he has betrayed you.
It is time to even the score, yes? Time to go on the hunt. Think how the taste of his flesh will fill you. And after the blood of your blood, who shall we pursue?”

Reed Taylor. My stupid boss.
Sparkles.

“
Yesssss,” he hissed, and burrowed down even deeper. “All of them, one by one. Or in a pack. And then we shall go for the softest one, yes? Tender. The pup. The child. Think how her skin will rend, how she will fill our jaws nicely, how her tiny body will feel as we shake, shake, shake her, and bury her bones in the soft dirt. The child. Let us go for the child.”

The child
? Lydia. He wants to hurt my Lydia.

He licked my ear, but my scrambled thoughts were righting themselves.

“The child?” I asked. I laid still on the concrete, water running over my split lip and broken nose. The dog demon leaned closer.

“The little one.
Little ones are so tender, and the sound they make as they die…”

He didn’t have time to finish.
My elbow cracked up into his sensitive snout. He grunted and rocked back. I flipped onto my side, bending his arm painfully, and punched him in the snout again.

His fingers ripped
from the Tracing, and I was disgusted to find I missed the feel of him, missed the rush of heated emotion that pulled from me. Disgust and horror gave me strength. I rolled on my back and kicked him, once, twice, in the head. My boot connected solidly in his ribs, and he sprawled backwards, howling. I clambered to my feet.

“You won’t touch her,” I spat out between kicks.
“She is not for you. I may be flirting with darkness myself, and think horrible things, but I would never, never, never,” I accentuated each word with another kick, “hurt her!”

He curled into a ball, whimpering.
I realized I should have felt sorry for him, but the anger humming in my veins felt too good. With each passing second, he was fading away into mist, and I wanted to hurt him for as long as I possibly could. Make him feel it. Break his legs and make him limp home, sorry he had met me. Sorry he knew my name.

Blood flowed from his snout, dark and red, and the thick heat of it burned in my throat.
Could demons bleed? Is that even possible? I took a step back from him, breathed deep, and really looked.

One eye was swollen shut. He was breathing quickly, shallowly, his tongue lolling from his mouth.
His skin was slick with rainwater and blood.

Blood. It reminded me why that vial of demon’s blood had been so important to Demon Patrol. Obviously he knew something I didn’t. I needed to talk to Reed Taylor, see if he had any answers.