Hunter Kiss: A Companion Novella (12 page)

"Seems convenient."

"I suppose, but what they did-what all those men in here just did-is highly unusual. These kinds of demons usually hang back, live like shadows, just ... whispering. Manifesting urges. What you've seen over the past day or so is much more intense. Takes energy,
rower. to
completely take over a host.

"Where would they get that power?"

"Good question." I chew the inside of my cheek, not fond of the possible answer. "Did Rex or any of those men know you were going to Pike Place last night? Or a month ago, before that other attack?"

Grant nods, his gaze sharpening. "Like I said, those men were my regulars. Rex came first. Ex-con, drug addict. Trouble, right off the bat. Eased up after a while, though. He was ... responding well. Got a job down at the docks. The other guys came later. Rex said they were ... friends."

"Sounds like he recruited them."

"Yeah." Grant clears his throat. "My movements wouldn't have been much of a secret."

"Which means, if Rex is to be believed, their queen would have known you were coming. She could have commanded some of her demons to be there waiting."

"But why Pike Place? Why at the market, when there would have been a dozen other places and times that she could have had some
one kill me? Doesn't make sense, Maxine. It doesn't even make sense that anyone would wait until now to come here."

He is right. It makes no sense at all. The boys shiver against my skin. Grant wraps his arm over my shoulder and draws me close. "This isn't going to stop, is it? Not until I'm dead."

"Not until we're both dead," I whisper, and press my lips against

his shoulder.

Seven

There is no time. The men need medical attention. That, and the for
merly possessed always wake up confused, frightened. Grant calls 911, and in ten minutes an ambulance arrives, followed closely by the police. We are questioned separately, but spin stories of surprise and confusion and who-could-do-such-a-thing. Voices shake. Knees trem
ble. Adrenaline, riding us down, just as it should-not entirely an act.

And then the men, still unconscious, are carried out on stretch
ers. The police leave. Grant and I go back to his apartment, take off our clothes, and crawl under the covers of his bed, simply holding each other. I like how his sheets and pillows smell like the both of us. I like how it feels to have his body tangled heavy and strong around my own, the warm planes and angles of his face so close I could kiss him by tilting my chin.

So I do, on his jaw. Grant rumbles, almost a purr. "Do that again, Maxine."

I press my lips against his mouth, and his hands slide up my back

into my hair as he deepens the kiss, crushing me to his body, wind
ing his legs around my hips. Something hard and hot presses against my stomach, and I touch him, stroking lightly, watching Grant's throat tighten, his eyes flutter shut.

His hand trails from my hair to my breast. "You're a bad woman, Maxine."

"My horns hold up my halo."

He laughs, his thumb moving in some very interesting circles that

make my back arch and my thighs rub together. "What are we going

to do with each other? What are we going to do?"

What started out on a teasing note turns into something softer, darker, and it makes me sigh. "Our options are limited. Run or fight."

"I won't run. I don't want to be prey. I don't think you do, either. Assuming ... you even want to stay."

His hesitation makes me smile. "I treat men like dirty socks, Grant. Use 'em, then lose 'em."

"Is that so?" His hold around me tightens. "And if I don't want to be lost?"

No more room for jokes. I brush back his hair, stroking the line of his cheek. "Then you won't be. Not ever."

Grant looks at me with such tenderness I forget how to breathe, how to think; all I can do is ride the sudden sharp ache in my heart, a pain that rises thick and pure into my throat, making it hard to breathe.

Life goes on,
my mother used to
say. Even i f you don't want it to.

But I want it to. My life. My future. Hope. Faith.

And no more running.

I do not know what scares me more.

wake at sunset, just as the boys are ready to peel off my skin.
Grant is not in bed with me. His side of the mattress is cold. My searching hand nudges paper. A note.

I barely notice my tattoos dissolving into smoke as I kick back the covers, scrambling to get up, but before my feet can touch the floor I hear a familiar tap from the other room. Grant, leaning on his cane, pokes his head around the doorway. "Hey, you're awake."

I force myself to breathe, and look down at the paper in my hands. I see the words "going downstairs" and "be right back" and "don't worry, love, G."

I crumple the note and meet his gaze, which is becoming con
cerned. "I thought you had gone and done something stupid."

"Tempting, but no." Grant's mouth quirks into a wry smile. "I wish I could pound my chest and lock you up, but I'm no superhero, and I value my life."

"Those demons would kill you." I stifle a gasp as the boys peel free, smoke coalescing into flesh before they scatter to the floor, stretching and yawning, claws clicking madly.

"I was thinking more of you killing
me,"
he mutters, watching the transformation. Calm. Always so calm. I wonder what it would take to make him lose his nerve for real. He takes a step into the room. In his free hand he holds a wooden flute. I raise my brow.

"I have a plan," Grant tells me. "But it's dangerous. Stupid. And it probably won't work."

"Wooo!" cheer the boys, pumping their little fists into the air.

We eat dinner. Talk. Make love. Hold each other inside the shower,
where I wrap my arms around Grant's hard body and hug him so tight I leave bruises. He never complains-just embraces me with his quiet strength, rumbling words I do not understand, but which sound good and warm, like home.

And then, when the hour turns late, we leave. Grant takes his flute. I have the boys.

It is raining, water sheeting down against the windshield with deafening force, blinding my view of the road. Lightning cuts the

city skyline, thunder rolling over the empty downtown streets. It is a

bad night to be out.

I park the car on First Street, directly in front of Pike Place Mar

ket. The steel grates are down, the lights off. Neither of us moves,

though the boys melt into the shadows of the backseat. Dek and Mal coil tight around my neck.

Grant fingers the flute. "I suppose we could test my theory in here where it's dry. I've never tried to summon a demon queen from inside a '69 red Mustang. Might make a quick getaway that much easier."

"Having second thoughts?"

"Not really. You said this place is a hot spot, right? Where the veil is thin?"

"And you said you've been playing weekends in this market for months. Just ... doing your thing." Changing personalities, weav
ing color into the darkness of human spirits. Work I question, work I would never want him to attempt on me-no matter how good his intentions. "I suppose that explains why you became a threat, if your music somehow made it through the weak spots in the veil. Af
fecting demons on the other side."

"It may have been enough that I changed demons already here."

I say nothing. Just tap the steering wheel, staring out the window at the rain-battered street. Chew the inside of my cheek, trying to consider the possibilities, the future. My brain goes empty. All I can see is darkness and cold, the shelling water beating the world into a hard drum, a hard pulse, a hard heart.

I touch the door handle. "Ready?"

Grant never answers. Zee explodes from the shadows of the backseat, claws tearing up the leather. Something massive slams into the Mustang's hood, tilting the vehicle up on its front two wheels be
fore dropping us hard to the road. The crash is bone jarring. My seat belt cuts so deep I imagine it touches my spine. Grant shouts my name. Glass shatters, a massive fist punching through the wind
shield, slamming into his headrest. Zee howls.

I shove open my door and tumble out, dragging Grant over the driver's seat behind me. The rain steals my breath away, as does the hulking figure crouched on the hood, a creature twice my height and triple around. No features, no eyes or nose or ears-just a mass of smoky shadows radiating heat like the rough shell of a hot coal.

Zee melts from the shadows, Aaz and Raw close behind. Dek and Mal loosen their grip around my neck, uncoiling through my hair, whispering words I do not understand. A prickle runs up my spine. I glance over my shoulder.

We are not alone. I see other bodies, darker than night, shambling close like sludge hills with legs. Their skin hisses and steams beneath the rain, and there is a glint of red where their eyes should be.

The demon on top of my car makes a throaty sound and leaps down, concrete cracking beneath its feet. Behind it I see a shimmer that makes me blink hard, wipe rain from my eyes, and stare hard at the hood of my car, which is no longer crumpled and torn-but completely undamaged. The windshield is intact. The only indica
tion there was ever violence is the driver's side door, still hanging open.

"Bogeymen," Zee mutters. "Pain baiters."

Grant lifts the flute to his mouth. The bogey watches the man, measures him. Makes me think of my mother, the zombie who must have sat in darkness outside our home, also watching, also measuring.

I click my fingers, and Zee throws himself at the demon. His claws sink into the frayed darkness of its back, teeth ripping into shadow, tearing out chunks of it like meat. Aaz and Raw cut behind us, yanking spikes from their spines and using them as daggers as they slash through the hulking demons behind us, spraying sparks through the rain, against the cobblestone road.

Grant presses his mouth to the flute, and the trembling notes that pour from the instrument, quicksilver and throaty, make me gasp and the bogies howl. I see no colors, only I feel-like riding breath
less and wild on the back of a thundercloud-and it is more than

music, more than I imagined, more than Grant could explain. Pied Piper, running Hamelin into Hell.

Heat blossoms around the crown of my head. I look up and see a slit in the night sky. An eye, bathed in red; a cut in the veil, a break in the rain. I hear heartbeats, the tumult and chatter of jostling bod
ies, the world on the other side pressing down and down through the narrow opening. The bogies try to touch that bulge, but the boys hang on like monkeys in banyan trees, swarming and cutting, weigh
ing down those thick arms and legs with their small dense bodies. Looking at me the entire time. Waiting for my call, while I wait for Grant, who falters, the music dying against his lips. An acrid filthy scent fills the air-the miasma, the spit of the Blood Sea.

The bogies disappear. Gone, sparking out-one blink and no more. The boys fall hard to the road, scrabbling and searching. Nothing. I do not bother looking. I reach out and touch Grant. We lean into each other. I wish he would keep playing his flute-that was the plan-but all I can do is stare.

"Maxine," Grant whispers hoarsely. "There's something I need to tell you. About why I was never afraid."

"Not now," I murmur.

"Now," he says, and the quiet urgency, the fear in his voice, is enough to make me tear my gaze from the sky and watch him tap his temple with a shaking hand. "I had seen you before. Up here. I dreamed your colors, your aura, before I ever met you. And I

knew ..." He stops, his eyes growing hot, bright. "I knew I would

love you. I knew then, and I knew it after. I couldn't help myself."

"Grant," I whisper.

"I was afraid of not telling you that," he says. "I'm still afraid."

He presses the flute to his mouth, but only manages to play a

high sweet trill before something long and dark snakes from the eye.

I move, but not fast enough. The tentacle coils around Grant's

throat and raised arms, snapping tight. The flute drops. Grant goes

in the opposite direction, kicking wildly, screams muffled as he is

hauled like a fish up and up to that red steaming eye. Hooked-just as I hook demons.

I grab his ankles and go with him.

Born again, sliding from the womb into a splash of blood. I open my
eyes and see red clouds, red smoke, an expanse of red water running into darkness, boiling and spitting like some hot pustule on the ass of a hissing volcano. The air is foul. Shadows dance around my body.

I hover in the air, my arms tearing from the sockets. My hands are still wrapped around Grant's ankles, and he is being pulled by some
thing I cannot see. Pulled, yet unmoving. Just as I am not moving.

I look down. There is a slit beneath me, and from that slit I see Zee. His little hands clutch my feet. His teeth are bared, the spikes of his hair standing straight up. I can only guess at who is holding his body, anchoring us all.