InsistentHunger (21 page)

Brady gave an exaggerated sigh. “You’re intentionally
avoiding my actual question, aren’t you? You know, the one where I asked what’s
really going on with you. I mean, I guess that’s okay. God knows you aren’t
exactly one to open up and share a lot.”

“Brady.” Paige stopped, not sure what to say to him. The
fact was that she didn’t open up a lot and she really didn’t feel like talking
to him about how uncomfortable she was with him.

At this point she wasn’t even sure whether it was the sex or
the demonic life form that was making her more uncomfortable and that probably
didn’t say much about her mental health. It definitely didn’t say good things
about her morally. She should probably be more bothered by the fact that he was
a demon, but she never had figured out how to have a relationship with a man
after having sex with him.

She knew how to have a relationship with a man while having
sex, but once the sex ended, she pretty much didn’t know what to do with them.
And since she didn’t plan on having sex with Brady again, that put him squarely
in the middle of what-the-hell land.

“No, really, it’s okay, Paige. I know you’ve dealt with a
lot here recently. So when you’re ready, you’ll tell me what’s going on. Until
then, let’s go chase this John Monagas.”

Shit. Either Brady had a little Jewish mother in his head
telling him what to say or he was just really talented with the guilt.

Brady stared out the window as the last rays of the sun
crept across the world. Each tree created a shadow that seemed to crawl across
the face of the planet, and the world seemed, for one fleeting moment, alien.
Maybe that’s why it didn’t make any sense that Brady was still acting like
Brady. The world had changed, she had changed, but he was still the young
recruit, willing to listen to her and wait for her to make her move.

He’d never been the one to insist that, as the man, he had
to go first. She’d had one or two recruits who were just that obnoxious. She
never could figure out whether they were like that because she was a woman or
because she was five foot one or because they didn’t trust her. In the end it
didn’t matter.

However, Brady had never thrown around his power. Despite the
fact that he was taller and stronger, he’d still respected her. And he was
respecting her now. But if the website was right, this wasn’t Brady at all.
This was some demon who had moved into Brady’s body, a demon who still
respected her as a partner.

And that’s where the logic just fell apart.

Even if she didn’t read a whole lot of horror books or watch
horror movies, it did seem like demons were not high on the polite scale.
Polite demon sounded like an oxymoron. Patient demon sounded even more like
one, but Brady was sitting with his hands on his knees, his body relaxed as he
stared out the tinted glass. He wasn’t fidgeting as he tried to figure out some
way to get information out of her.

“How are you feeling?” she blurted out.

Brady looked at her and smiled, his white teeth flashing in
the low light. “A lot better. Your old neighbors may not be thrilled at the
number of small animals that have gone suddenly missing, but I feel like I can
think clearly, you know? And look.” Brady pointed down. “I found shoes that
fit. That’s one for the win column. Now I just need to find clean underwear.”
He also had on an ugly plaid shirt, but at least it was clean and it fit. It
looked like Brady had raided more than a few hen houses.

Something occurred to her. “How often do you think you’re
going to need to raid the neighbors’ farms?”

That made him grimace a bit. “Hopefully not that often. Do
you remember how much I hated having to crawl in that dumpster for evidence?
Yeah, that’s about how much I really hated having to go after livestock. Sure,
they tasted great, but they’re messier than barbecued ribs.”

“Geez, Brady. There are some things I really don’t need to
know.” She pulled onto Cooper Street.

“I thought you were fine with me eating your chickens.”

“I am. I just don’t want to know about the details. So
you’re feeling better? I don’t suppose any new information has just floated to
the top of your mind?”

“You mean like what
pijavica
is or how one is made?”
Brady asked with just a touch of sarcasm. He probably had a right to be a
little sarcastic since technically she was holding out on him.

“Yeah. Did anything like that float to the surface?”

Brady didn’t answer right away and the hesitation caught her
attention. She gave him a sharp look. “Maybe one or two things,” he admitted
reluctantly. “I remember being somewhere loud—somewhere very loud and very
bright. It was too bright, like the air was strong enough to sink into your
skin. And then I remember seeing…”

His voice trailed off and Paige waited for him to finish the
story, but he stared out the window at the old houses and crumbling shops in
this part of town. His body was stiff—his hands gripped his knees so tightly
that his knuckles turned white.

“Brady?” she whispered.

“I remember seeing Brady’s back, I remember the letters
carved in the skin and the blood and the smell. I remember that the room was
dark and peaceful and something was calling. Someone. I can hear—”

Brady turned his head and looked at her. The red had faded
from his eyes so that only their unnaturally light brown color betrayed his
true nature. His face was twisted with guilt and pain. “I remember feeling
Brady slip past me, his soul releasing from a body that hurt too much. Maybe I
would’ve kept the truth hidden, except I think you already figured out the
truth.” Brady shrugged. “I’m just too much of a coward to try to hide the truth
from you. You’d kick my ass.”

“Yeah, I would.” Paige’s heart hurt at the thought of Brady
in so much pain that he’d given up. The pain was physical, ripping at her chest
so that she had to work to breathe. She turned down Pico Street into the
poorest part of town. There were plenty of abandoned houses down here. Pulling
the car to the side of the road, she parked.

Her research had shown her so much.

Vârcolac
were wizards who, in life, had the power to
become a wolf. In death they became a powerful race of vampires.
Jiangshi
were clumsy, awkward vampires who were more zombie than vampire, walking
corpses that killed by absorbing the life essence of others.
Strigoi
were witches in life who became vampires in death.

And in every case, the demon came into the body when the
human soul left it. She’d lost the first Brady, the trainee who had looked to
her for protection and bumbled his way through asking Cindy on a date. However,
this Brady had so many of the same traits. He trusted her, turned to her. He’d
saved her.

She thought of his bare feet, swamp mud squishing up between
the toes after he’d pulled her away from the vamps chasing her. He still cared
about finding this rapist and he stood outside her bathroom door sounding just
as awkward as the day human Brady tried to ask Cindy out on a date. The two
weren’t separate in her mind, but they weren’t the same. Her head pounded from
trying to find a way to make it all work in her head. How could she care so
much for someone who wasn’t even human?

Brady silently watched her, his head tilted to the side as
he waited for something. “I found a website that might not be pure bullshit,”
Paige admitted. “It said that demons take over bodies after the people are
gone. It also said that
pijavica
are created when human beings are evil,
particularly when sons and mothers have sex.”

“Okay, that’s just wrong,” Brady complained.

A rough bark of laughter slipped out of Paige. “Says the
demon.”

“Hey, demon with some standards. Sex with your mother is
never okay, not even for demons.”

“And you know this because?” Paige asked. What would a demon
mother be like anyway? Her head was seriously going to explode from overuse of
the brain.

“I don’t. However, trust me, I’m a demon and I’m not okay
with sleeping with my mother.” A shadow crossed Brady’s face and he frowned.

“Do you feel like Brady’s mom is your mom?” Paige asked.

He shrugged. “No. My mom is just another person. His mom,”
he corrected himself. “It’s like her and Dad don’t really matter much. I
wouldn’t go out of my way to hurt them, but I’m having trouble caring about the
fact that they’re crying over a dead son. I don’t really…” Stopping, he gave a
sigh.

Turning off the car, Paige studied Brady. His mother was
just some random person, but Brady had come to her, asked her for help when
they’d only been partners for less than two months. Demons might sometimes be
patient and polite, but the logic was not so logical.

However, that honesty deserved a little honesty in return.
“Hunter told me about the
pijavica
. When I called him with the John
Monagas lead, he admitted that he had heard of demons rising without a
ceremony.”

“Are we sure there wasn’t a ceremony? I mean, if Monagas was
that much of a badass, maybe some demon saw him and decided to turn him into a
demon, which would not explain me because I was not the sort of badass to
impress anyone with my demonic evil.” Brady sighed. “I’m demonic now and I
don’t feel particularly evil. Chickens might not agree with that though.” Brady
gave her a goofy, twisted smile. Yeah, demon logic was definitely way beyond
Paige.

“Do you really think some demon wanted him out there
creating trouble and attracting police attention? My guess is that if there are
other demons around, they aren’t Monagas fans.”

If the demons were like deer hunters, that meant they wanted
their territory to themselves and they wanted it quiet. “There’s a file on the
backseat. Pull out the picture and see if he looks familiar to you,” Paige told
Brady. Without a word, he reached into the back and grabbed the file. Flipping
it open, he looked at the various booking pictures of John Monagas.

Almost immediately, he shook his head. “This guy doesn’t
look familiar at all.”

“Not even from the ceremony?”

Brady still shook his head. “No way. A lot of the faces are
fuzzy, but I think I’d remember this guy. I thought killers were supposed to
look average so they didn’t stand out in the community. This guy looks like a
serial killer.”

Paige actually thought Monagas looked pretty average, but
she didn’t say that. “That’s funny because technically he’s just a serial
rapist. If he were a serial killer, the FBI would be way more helpful. But hey,
raping is just a woman thing, so they don’t get that involved.”

Frowning, Brady flipped the file shut. “Your cynicism is
showing.”

“That’s my realism. As a man you just have trouble
recognizing it.” The pain of the moment slipped back into the background as the
needs of the present allowed Paige to push aside her worries.

Brady rolled his eyes. “Okay, let’s assume that the demons
who did my ceremony aren’t fans of John Monagas the demon. Where does that
leave us?”

For a long time, Paige stared out the window. This case
didn’t come with easy answers. “With one seriously fucked-up case.”

“That’s been true since day one.”

“Yeah, but it’s more fucked up now. What are we supposed to
tell the department? Hey, we have a gang war, only with demons instead of
gangs! Even better, I can prove it. Look at the dead guy walking around.” Paige
pressed her hands into her eyes and tried to push back against all the thoughts
that buffeted her.

“I’m hoping you’re being sarcastic.” Brady tossed the file
back into the backseat.

Paige sighed. “Mostly. It pisses me off that this asshole is
walking around and we can’t tell people what we know. We’re just supposed to
let him get away with this.” She wasn’t being fair and she knew that. They
weren’t letting Monagas get away with anything because they were out chasing
him. However, it would be a lot easier to chase him if they had help.

“If you want to tell them, we can,” Brady said in a voice
barely louder than a whisper. She could see his fear in the way he sat stiffly
and clenched his hands. It said a lot about him as a man—or as a demon—that he
would face that fear rather than letting John Monagas get away.

“This would be a lot easier on me emotionally if you would
just be more demonly,” Paige pointed out. No wonder her feelings were so mixed
up when Brady kept sounding so not-evil.

“Demonly?” Brady had the nerve to actually sound amused.

“Cruel, vicious, murderous maybe,” Paige continued. She
punched his arm. “If you weren’t such a decent, caring creature, it would be a
lot easier to dismiss you as a monster and stop liking you,” Paige pointed out.

Slowly, the tension drained from Brady’s body as he smiled
at her. “You like me? Even knowing I’m a demon?”

Paige rolled her eyes and got out of the car. Brady got out
his side and she waited until she’d locked and slammed the door to continue the
conversation. “You’re turning into a teenage girl, Brady.”

He waited as she came around the car and then he punched her
arm back. “Hey, this has been just as hard on me as on you, Silver. I have
earned the right to one or two hang-ups.”

Paige rolled her eyes and headed for the space between two
rambling old houses. “Look for signs that one of these houses is being used. In
Memphis, Monagas broke out a back window and used each house as a lair until he
grabbed a woman off the street. Then he’d move on to a new lair. It made him
almost impossible to catch.”

“That would. How do you do a geographical profile with that
kind of mobility?”

Paige looked at Brady and wondered if he really cared.

The old Brady would have. The old Brady used to read every
file he could get his hands on. The old Brady probably wanted to go into the
FBI and do profiling someday and Paige felt bad that she’d never asked him what
he planned for his future. How had this Brady described it though? The old
Brady had installed a handicapped rail in the bathroom, and when the demon
moved into the house, he just hadn’t bothered taking it down.