Darkness Calls

Table of Contents

EVERYONE’S LOVING THE MAXINE KISS NOVELS

BY “RED-HOT LIU”*

 

“Marjorie M. Liu writes a gripping supernatural thriller.”

—
The Best Reviews

 

“The boundlessness of Liu’s imagination never ceases to amaze; her ability to translate that imagination into a lyrical work of art never ceases to impress.”—
Booklist

 

“Raises the bar for all others competing in its league . . . Liu’s screenplay-worthy dialogue, vivid action, and gift for the punchy, unexpected metaphor rocket her tale high above the pack. Readers of early Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, and the best thrillers out there should try Liu now and catch a rising star.”—
Publishers Weekly

 

“Nonstop adventure . . . a rich world with paranormal elements.” —
SFRevu

 

“Red-hot Liu . . . packs her stories with immensely intriguing characters, making the high-stakes plotlines even more mesmerizing.”—*
Romantic Times

 

“I adore the Hunter Kiss series! Marjorie Liu’s writing is both lyrical and action packed, which is a very rare combination. Heroine Maxine Kiss and her demon friends are wonderful characters who are as likable as they are fierce. You’ll want to read this series over and over.”

—Angela Knight,
New York Times
bestselling author

 

“Fabulous romantic-suspense fantasy that will hook the audience from the first note to the incredible climactic coda.”

—
Midwest Book Review

 

“A wonderful voice.”—
Romance at Heart Magazine

 

“Readers who love urban fantasies like those of Charlaine Harris or Kim Harrison will relish Marjorie M. Liu’s excellent adventure. This is the superb start of a dynamic-looking saga.”—
Midwest Book Review

 

“Liu is masterful in merging espionage, romance, and the supernatural into fiction that goes beyond the boundaries of action-adventure romance or romantic suspense.”—
Booklist

 

“Ms. Liu does a lovely job in . . . preparing us for the highspeed action in her demon-filled adventure. A creative and well-written story line provides a strong backbone for this new urban fantasy series, and the unique characters in
The Iron Hunt
will charm, tempt, and surprise readers into coming back for more.”—
Darque Reviews

 

“A stunning new series . . . The mythology is fascinating, the characters complicated, the story lines original. I’m a big fan of Liu’s Dirk & Steele series, but this one surpasses even it.”—
Fresh Fiction

THE IRON HUNT
DARKNESS CALLS

 

 

 

HUNTER KISS

 

 

 

WILD THING
(with Maggie Shayne, Alyssa Day, and Meljean Brook)

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

DARKNESS CALLS

 

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / July 2009

Copyright © 2009 by Marjorie M. Liu.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-06042-1

 

ACE
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Every book I write is a journey, and I’d like to thank the following people who have traveled this novel’s path alongside me:

 

My wonderful editor, Kate Seaver—and my equally fantastic agent, Lucienne Diver. All the good people at Berkley who have made this series possible, especially Leslie Gelbman and Susan Allison. My copy editors, Bob and Sara Schwager. My friends and family, who still giggle at this job I have—and my lovely readers, who support me in countless kind ways.

 

I’d like to thank Adam Minter, as well, for being a wealth of information about St. Ignatius Cathedral in Shanghai, China—and for always taking the time to answer my questions.

 

To learn more about the Hunter Kiss series, please visit my website at
www.marjoriemliu.com
.

Though my soul may set in darkness,
it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.

—SARAH WILLIAMS, “THE OLD ASTRONOME R TO HIS PUPIL”

CHAPTER 1

Z
OMBIES had a bad habit of shooting me in the head. Most of them knew better, but there was always that one who wanted to get lucky.

It was a wet Monday morning. Almost dawn. Broken streetlights and glass in the road; and the hulking shadows of abandoned warehouses towering above me. Dead city, dead hour. Seattle was a dark place, even with the sun. Some days felt like living in the aftermath of a nuclear winter; as though a mushroom cloud had blown over and never left.

Quiet, too. Nothing to hear except harsh breathing, a soft whine; my cowboy boots scuffing concrete and the sharpening of claws; and the rumble of the freight trains at the rail yard across from the docks, mingling with the growls vibrating softly in my ears: baby symphonies of thunder. Good music. Made me feel safe.

I rubbed wet hair out of my eyes. “Zee. Hold him tighter.”

Him. Archie Limbaud. Scrawny man, sinewy as a garter snake, saddled with a crown of short brown hair plastered to his soaked skin and flecked with enormous flakes of dandruff. He was a fortysomething man who smelled like the private bathroom of a teenage boy: unwashed and vaguely fecal.

He was also a zombie. Not the brain-eating, shambling kind, either. Not a corpse. Just a man, possessed by a demon—who was using his body like a puppet. Practically the same as being dead, if you asked me.

I did not want to touch him. He sprawled on the edge of an empty parking lot, crammed against the bottom of a chain-link fence, the contents of his wallet scattered on the ground in front of me. More condoms than cash, along with one credit card, and an expired driver’s license. Minutes ago, there had been a gun—a .40-caliber pistol, pointed at my head—but that was gone now. Eaten.

I hated guns. I hated zombies. Put those together with what I knew about the possessed man at my feet, and I didn’t know whether to cry, scream, or kick the fuck out of his testes.

I eased off my gloves, shoved them in my back pocket, and extended my palm. A sharp little hand passed me a switchblade. Pretty thing, with a mother-of-pearl handle and silver accents. Razor edge, still wet with blood. Engraved with the initials A.L. I waved it in front of Archie’s ruddy face, and his dark aura fluttered wildly around the crown of his head.

“Some night,” I said quietly. “I found the body.”

Archie said nothing. Part of that might have been the aluminum baseball bat pressed down on his throat. Stolen from the Seattle Mariners, if I had to guess. I could see the stadium walls of Safeco Field from where I crouched, and Zee and the others were going through a baseball phase. Babe Ruth was in; Bill Russell was out. Which pained me. At least my boys were still obsessed with Bon Jovi. I couldn’t have handled that much change.

Zee, Raw, and Aaz were down on the ground, pinning Archie to the pavement. Little demons, little hounds. Rain sizzled, trickling down bony backs the color of soot smeared with silver, skin shimmering with a muscular fluidity that resembled water more than flesh. Razor-sharp spines of hair flexed against chiseled skulls while silver veins pulsed with slow beats that, if I had pressed my ear close, would have sounded like the steady thrums of bass guitars.

Red eyes glinted. I used the switchblade to tap Aaz on the back of the head, and his hair cut through the steel as if it were butter. Raw caught the bits of blade before they hit the pavement and stuffed them in his mouth, chewing loudly.

“Ease up on the windpipe,” I said to Aaz. “I don’t want the host harmed.”

Aaz blew a kiss at the zombie and removed the baseball bat from his soft, bruised throat. Archie started coughing, fighting to move his legs. No luck. Raw was sitting on his ankles, and Zee had his wrists pinned to the pavement. Not quite crushing bone, but close. My boys were strong.

“Please,” Archie whispered hoarsely. “I want to convert.”

“Liar,” rasped Zee, before I had a chance to tell the zombie to go fuck himself. The little demon leaned close to lick the air above Archie’s brow. “Cutter lies, Maxine. He still hungers.”

“He murders,” I said, gripping the remains of the switchblade in my fist as a young face flashed through my mind, bloody and sliced, long brown limbs naked, splayed. Torn doll. Torn in places I did not want to remember. “She was just a kid.”

“She was a prostitute,” Archie said. “She was already prey.”

Dek and Mal, coiled heavy on my shoulders, peered from beneath my hair and hissed at the zombie. Unlike the others, they were built like snakes, with two vestigial limbs good only for clutching my ears. Heads shaped like hyenas. Sharp smiles. Fire in their breath. Archie stared at them, and trembled.

I reached through his thunderous aura to place my hand on his clammy brow. He shied away, but the boys held tight, and in that last moment before I touched him, his eyes rolled back, staring at the delicate armor surrounding the entire ring finger of my right hand: a slender sheath of quicksilver, replete with a delicate joint at the knuckle, which allowed my finger to bend. Fit like a skin. Sometimes I forgot it was there.

“Prey,” I murmured. “And what does that make you?”

“One of a million,” he whispered, shaking; staring at me with hate in his eyes. “You can’t kill us all. When the prison walls fail—”

“You’ll be rat meat to the rest of the demons,” I interrupted, still thinking of the girl I had found in an alley only blocks from here, summoned to her still-warm body by Zee and the others, who had roused me from bed to hunt her killer. “Your kind will be slaughtered, just like the humans. You’re nothing to the others. Even your Queen has said so.”