Demon Marked

by Anna J. Evans

  She didn’t know, and it bothered her more than it should have.

  “Emma, please,” Andre said, his voice not much more than a whisper. “You’re a beautiful girl, but—”

  “But I’m not Katie. I get it.”

  Andre’s breath rushed out as if she’d punched him in the chest, and his self-assured facade crumbled before her eyes. For a split second she imagined she saw Andre as he’d appeared as a younger man, before events had conspired to make him an arrogant ass. He looked so hurt, vulnerable, almost frightened.

  A part of her felt awful for putting such a stricken expression on his face, but the rest of her was too angry to care. She could handle the smug chuckles and the insinuations that she was crazy, but the condescending rejection had pushed her to the edge. He could take his “beautiful girl” comments and shove them.

  “Thanks for helping me. I’ll call you later to make sure everything worked out,” Emma said, shouldering her way past Andre and back out onto the street.

  The city air glowed pale pink and orange, and the sounds of cars and buses lining up to get through the barricade rumbled toward her from Broadway. It must be after five o’clock. Ginger had to be back at their apartment by now. Emma knew she could have asked Andre to call for her, but there was no way she was turning around. Instead, she lengthened her stride, hurrying toward the street corner.

  She half expected him to come after her, but he didn’t. He let her go, which made her feel even sicker than she had a few minutes ago. But then, what else was new? Being around Andre always made her a little ill. She shouldn’t have expected this encounter to be any different, especially not because of some stupid kiss.

  Andre watched Emma’s narrow form hustle down the street and turn the corner, presumably heading back to the west Southie apartment she shared with one of Sam’s friends. He knew he should go after her, follow her, and make sure she got home safely—she’d said she’d passed out earlier and might not be in top form—but he couldn’t seem to make his feet move. He didn’t want to look at Emma again, not until he’d had some time to pull himself back together.

  And call Jace in Seattle and rip him a new asshole. He didn’t care if his cousin was on his honeymoon. He deserved every harsh word Andre intended to hurl at him.

  How dare he tell Emma about Katie? Even if Jace had told Sam and Sam had told Emma, it was still unacceptable. Katie was Andre’s own private business, his own private misery, not to be shared with anyone. She’d been dead for eight years, and no one in the Conti family had mentioned her name since the funeral.

  Even his mom and dad pretended he’d never been engaged. His parents hadn’t said a word when Andre started bringing other women to the family restaurant only a few weeks after Katie was put in the ground. They simply cleared a place at the table and ran back to the kitchen to make an extra salad, because they knew better than to do anything to pick at the empty, aching hole Katie had left inside him.

  But Jace had spilled his guts for some stupid reason. Maybe Katie had come up in reference to Jace’s own addiction—he’d still used demon drugs for almost two years after she’d overdosed, a fact that had nearly destroyed the cousins’ friendship—but that didn’t offer much comfort. Jace was one of the few people Andre felt he could count on. Jace should have known better than to open his big mouth.

  Maybe he does. Maybe he didn’t tell Emma. Maybe she really did read your mind.

  “And maybe she killed a man with her life-sucking magic hands,” Andre whispered under his breath as he flipped his earbud into the “on” position and ordered it to call Michael—one of Conti Bounty’s most formidable bounty hunters and another of Andre’s many cousins. Michael was Uncle Francis’s younger son and one of the most dependable men Andre knew.

  Especially when it came to attending to sensitive situations.

  His cousin answered on the third ring, growling into the phone in typical Conti fashion. If it weren’t for Andre, the entire lot of them would be an uncivilized tribe of sweaty men with guns. “This better be important. It’s five o’clock in the morning.”

  “Good morning to you too, Mikey,” Andre said, forcing the usual banter.

  “Don’t call me Mikey, dickweed.”

  “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  “I kiss your mother with this mouth.”

  “Don’t bring Mary into this, Mikey.” Andre started down the street toward the barricade, the hint of a smile on his face. “Unless you want me to tell her to take the pesto gnocchi off the menu for Thursday.”

  Mikey sighed. “Jesus, Andre. What are you calling me for? Seriously, I was out late and—”

  “And you’re going to be up early, so start getting dressed. I need the laundry for the restaurant picked up. The usual guy canceled.”

  “Okay, I’m up, I’m up,” Michael said, nothing in his voice giving away that he was on his way to pick up a dead body, but Andre knew he’d understood the code phrase.

  The very idea that he’d really call Michael to “pick up the laundry” was ludicrous. The Contis owned a chain of laundry services, the better to “launder” some of the profits from the family’s extracurricular activities.

  “Oh, and on your way, could you stop by the Demon’s Breath? I think they left a few things out back that they need washed up.” Andre would usually e-mail the location of a corpse to Mikey in code, but he figured his cousin would get the message.

  And if the police were listening in on the phone call, they wouldn’t be suspicious. It was common knowledge that the Demon’s Breath was now considered a Conti business, though Samantha Quinn was the owner on paper.

  “No problem.” Michael’s voice was muffled for a second. He was probably pulling on clothes without bothering to shower after his long night. Speed was paramount. The body had been behind the pub for more than an hour. It was time to make sure this mess was taken care of before any Death Ministry came sniffing around and complicated an otherwise easily handled situation.

  Mikey was a pro. He’d collect the corpse, transport it to one of his secret dumping places near the river, and make certain the entire thing was consumed whole by one of the water-dwelling demons. Andre had heard rumors that Mikey had some sort of spice rub he worked into dead skin to make the flesh irresistible to the amphibious demons haunting the waters near the old East River Park. He’d never asked whether the rumor was true. Some things were just too much for a sensitive lawyer’s stomach to handle.

  “The bar’s right down the street from my place,” Michael continued. “I’ll call Little Francis and—”

  “No, don’t worry about calling Little F,” Andre said, keeping the words casual. “I’m headed over to the office later today; I’ll let him know you’ll be in late. But I won’t tell him about the laundry thing; wouldn’t want him to think he can get you to do all his errands, too.”

  Uncle Francis had been out of town on business for two weeks, and in his absence Conti Bounty had been under the thumb of Little Francis, his uncle’s oldest son and a man who needed a hobby in a bad way. Little F was a decent guy, but he had a tendency to micromanage, a habit that crawled up the asses of most of the Conti Bounty hunters, especially his little brother, Mikey.

  “Sounds good to me. I hate errands,” Michael said, making Andre breathe a little easier. “Call you later.”

  “Later.” Andre tapped his earbud, ending the call.

  He’d taken a risk hinting that Mikey should keep this from his brother, but he didn’t want Little Francis losing his cool and calling his dad in a panic. His father was close to finalizing an agreement with the DM leaders—setting a number of demons they could kill per month and arranging to supply them with stun guns that couldn’t be used to kill innocent people. He would definitely lose his cool if he realized they had a dead Death Ministry member on their hands and someone in their organization implicated in the murder. It killed Little F to see Conti Bounty profits sag as more demons fell prey to the Death Ministry and the growi
ng demand for demon highs. He’d want to know who had dirtied their hands and put the agreement at risk, and Andre wasn’t ready to tell him that Emma Quinn was the lady in question.

  What Little Francis didn’t know wouldn’t hurt anyone. Andre would explain the situation to Uncle Francis himself ... when the time was right. Maybe two or three months down the road, once the entire situation had resolved itself and any accompanying angst had blown over.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he’d kept his uncle in the dark. Uncle Francis was the big boss, but he was also on several heart medications. His family conspired to keep stress away from his door unless it was absolutely necessary, and Andre wasn’t convinced this situation was that critical.

  Emma hadn’t killed this guy—no matter what she thought—and there would have been no reason for them to get involved if the thug hadn’t made the poor decision to die on Conti turf. Even if Emma hadn’t touched him, it would have looked strange for a DM member to be found dead behind the Demon’s Breath. She wasn’t to blame. She’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  This from the man who was telling her how stupid she was half an hour ago? How quickly you change your tune once things get physical.

  Andre ignored his smart-ass thoughts and hurried across Broadway, threading his way through the cars idling in a line that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, filling the area below Union Square with exhaust fumes. His own car and driver sat in the employee parking structure, the one with the special access ramp that dumped the fortunate back into Manhattan on Park Avenue South without waiting in the horrendous line or paying the ten-dollar toll.

  Thank god. He’d never been more grateful for his uncle’s connections. The sun wasn’t even fully up and it was already hot and sticky enough to make his light cotton dress shirt stick and cling. It was a miserable morning to sit in traffic and sweat, so he’d head back uptown, get a coffee and some eggs at a clean, cool, patisserie instead of some Southie rat hole, and—

  His earbud pulsed, then announced a call from Michael Conti, interrupting his fantasies of air-conditioning and coffee that came with its own little pot of warmed cream.

  “What’s up, Mikey?” Andre asked.

  “Nothing much. Just wanted to let you know there wasn’t any laundry outside the Demon’s Breath.” Mikey sounded completely at ease, but Andre sensed the urgency in his words.

  “What do you mean? You’re already there?”

  “I told you I lived close, dude. I got here a couple of minutes ago and—”

  “Shit.” Andre stopped dead in the street, ignoring the cabbie who honked and screamed for him to get out of the way. The barricade had opened just a couple of minutes ago. This asshole wouldn’t be going anywhere for a good thirty minutes. “You checked out back? By the Dumpsters?”

  “I checked out back, out front, everywhere,” Mikey said. “Unless you want me to climb up and take a look on the roof, then—”

  “No. It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine at all. It was bad news. Very bad news. Andre spun on his heel and hurried back to where he’d last seen Emma.

  “Are you sure? I can get up to the roof if I need to. I—”

  “Hold on, Mikey. I’m going to try the Demon’s Breath manager on my other line,” Andre said. “Hold, line one. Line two, Emma Quinn.”

  Emma’s bud rang three, four times and then went to voice mail. Shit again. She’d called him from the pub earlier in the evening. She must not have her earbud with her. “Emma, it’s Andre. I need you to call me ASAP. Stop whatever you’re doing and call me.” Andre ended the call and broke into a jog, weaving through the increasingly crowded sidewalk, searching for any sign of Emma.

  He wasn’t sure where she lived, but he could find out. He’d call her sister. It was two in the morning in Seattle, but knowing Sam and Jace, they’d probably been out hunting demons until at least midnight. Hopefully Sam would have her bud on.

  “Line one,” Andre said. “Mikey, I’ve got to go.”

  “I’m still here. I can—”

  “Don’t worry about it. Head into work. I’ll call you later.” Andre ended the call with a firm tap on his bud and broke into a flat-out run, all thoughts of keeping cool vanishing in a wave of concern. What if the Death Ministry members had found their dead comrade? What if the gang had already decided to track down the girl they’d seen him talking to last night at the bar? Emma could be in very real danger.

  “Samantha Quinn,” Andre ordered. He hated to bother his cousin-in-law on her honeymoon, but he had no other choice. Sam would know how to find her sister, and he had to find Emma ... before anyone else did.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Emma knew something was wrong as soon as she reached the top of the stairs.

  The long, narrow hall leading to her apartment was a dark, cramped passage without a single window. The only illumination came from a pair of bare bulbs hanging at the beginning and end of the hallway. It was usually so dark she could barely see to fish her key from her purse and fit it into the lock.

  This morning, however, a bright shaft of light pierced the gloom from the second apartment on the right. The door to Emma and Ginger’s shared living space stood open, illuminating the flat, gray plaster on the opposite side of the hall, revealing the faint striped pattern of ancient wallpaper that had been painted over at least a dozen times.

  Emma’s hand instinctively reached for her purse, searching for her special “hair spray.”

  She didn’t worry about styling her hair—products were useless against its stubborn straightness—but she did worry about protecting herself on the Southie streets. A lot of women carried Mace in their purses. Emma took things a step further and had purchased a six-pack of miniflamethrowers from the secret back room at Yang’s Curiosity Shop.

  Any bad guy who tried to mess with her would soon find his face on fire.

  A girl couldn’t always depend on her life-sucking hands. Emma still followed Father Paul’s advice and did her best not to show the world at large what she could do. She fed in private, and criminals often attacked in public. Ginger had been mugged three times in the past five years, all three times in broad daylight on a crowded Southie street.

  If her roomie had been hanging with Emma, however, Emma was pretty damned sure the men who’d robbed Ginger wouldn’t have gotten away with her purse. Just like whoever had broken into their apartment wasn’t going to get away with any of their meager belongings. She might not have her purse or her special hair spray, but she still had the dark craving. It had probably gotten her into this mess. Now it might just have to get her out of it.

  Slowly, she crept down the hall, ears straining for any sounds coming from the apartment. There was no point in turning and running down the stairs. If the Death Ministry had found the body and come looking for her, she would be better off dealing with them now.

  They wouldn’t have found anything to connect her to Blue Eyes in her apartment. Hopefully, she could convince them she’d had nothing to do with his death, that she’d passed out and could have died in that alley if she’d had the misfortune to collapse in a puddle of her own vomit the way their friend had. Maybe they would believe her. Maybe she wouldn’t need to take matters into her own hands. ...

  By the time she reached the door, her heart was beating in her throat. She couldn’t remember being this afraid since the night the aura demons were banished last spring.

  But then ... this wasn’t just her life on the line. If the Death Ministry had found the corpse at the Demon’s Breath, then Sam and Jace and Ginger and everyone she cared about would be in danger. Emma might not feel comfortable getting too close to her new friends and family, but the thought of someone hurting them made her crazy. She’d do anything to keep them safe.

  Sam was so good, too good to spend her time with a kid sister who was basically a serial killer. And Ginger was just a sweet party girl. She’d never done anything to deserve the kind of pain and suffering the Death Ministry c
ould dish out. But what if Emma was too late? What if whoever had broken into the apartment had already hurt Ginger?

  If they had, she would kill them. No matter how many of them there were.

  Emma’s jaw clenched and her hands shook as she risked a quick glance into the apartment. “What the hell?” Muscles relaxing slightly, she eased inside, surveying the destruction.

  The combination living room and kitchenette was wrecked—pots and pans flung from the cupboards, dishes smashed on the bare wooden floor, and the ancient sofa gutted, its yellow stuffing erupting from the blue flowered upholstery. The bookshelf in the corner was overturned, and ripped pages fluttered across the room, carried by the breeze from the open window.

  Ginger’s and Emma’s cramped bedrooms hadn’t fared much better. Clothes exploded from the doors to the left and right, spilling out into the main room—a great puddle of black from Emma’s and a riot of color from Ginger’s.

  “Ginger? Are you here?” Emma asked, even though she knew no one would answer. It was too quiet. Whoever had done this was already gone and hadn’t left anyone behind to hang out in the mess they’d made.

  Hopefully, Ginger hadn’t come home yet. If Emma could get her on the phone—

  “Shit,” Emma cursed, running her dirty hands through her hair. No Ginger meant no purse and no phone.

  She was going to have to ask one of their neighbors to borrow a bud, which was going to be a lot of fun. If Ginger’s tales were to be believed, the dude at the end of the hall was some kind of hoarding freak who had six cats and a collection of ten thousand old Playboy magazines stacked to his ceiling. Emma had never seen any sign of the man aside from the occasional bag of dirty kitty litter pitched out his back window and didn’t want to see more of him anytime soon.