Temptation by Fire

by Tiffany Allee

  “That Karson guy sounds like he’s kind of a jerk,” she said. “But I don’t think he’s what’s got you all shaken up.”

  “I keep seeing that poor man. Thomas. I can’t get the image out of my head.” Not to mention the sensations I’d experienced—as if I’d been the one being burned alive.

  “I think we should try to find him.”

  “No. I told his friend to warn Thomas to watch out. How would being more specific help that?” I leaped off the couch and paced next to it. I felt like something was crawling under my skin. The ache to find this man, to warn him more fully—God, I wanted to. But I knew with too much certainty what would happen if I warned someone about one of my visions. “No way. You don’t understand, Miriam. It’s not just that I can’t prevent what I see in the visions from happening, but part of the curse seems to be that when I do warn people, it always makes things so much worse.”

  “How could it possibly get more horrible for this guy than burning alive?” Miriam pointed out.

  Guilt rushed through me, and I bit my lip. The future couldn’t get more terrible for that man. But it could for me—it always did. Crap hit the fan and warning people always put me directly in the path of the oncoming shitstorm. And that thought, selfish though it was, made me want to run away and hide.

  People never failed to look at me like I was some sort of freak when I warned them about my visions. Always.

  Even my own family.

  And they’d never stopped, really. Even though I’d kept my mouth shut for years. They just stopped looking at me. Stopped talking to me. Every single family member had rejected me because of the curse. At least, that’s the term I’d given it. The Curse. Because really, this thing that happened to me when I touched someone else’s skin had truly cursed my life. I’d lost just about everything, to the point that what I had left was Miriam.

  “You know what happened the last time I tried to warn someone, and every time before that,” I said.

  Pity touched Miriam’s expression, and I flinched. I didn’t want pity. I just wanted to be normal. To not have to worry about visions.

  God, I was so freaking selfish.

  “I know,” she said softly. “You’ve never really…gotten over what happened. But you survived. And there’s a lot to be said for that.”

  This vision was far too similar to the one that had alienated my family. That had made me an outcast. Fire and screams and anguish had filled that vision, too.

  I swallowed the acid climbing my throat. “I can’t change what will happen.”

  “But just because you haven’t been able to stop a vision from coming true before doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” Miriam said.

  I couldn’t breathe, and spots ran across my vision. I plopped back onto the couch and put my head between my knees. Miriam touched my shoulder and I jumped. She jerked her hand away.

  So stupid. My visions only occurred when there was skin-to-skin contact, and even then, they weren’t exactly common. But they weren’t uncommon enough, and any kind of touching made me twitchy. Too twitchy.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “I just hate feeling so powerless, but I shouldn’t take all this out on you.” Part of me wanted to curl up under a rock somewhere like a miserable coward. The idea sickened me, but what had I been doing all these years, if not hiding? I gave her a sideways look, seeking what—reassurance?

  Miriam gave me a small grin. “Of course you should take it out on me, that’s what friends are for. Do you remember how many boxes of tissues I went through here when Jimmy dumped me last year?” Her smile faded. “But I’m leaving soon, and I think maybe you need to start facing this gift of yours, start getting out of your shell a little bit.”

  “Yeah, right,” I choked out, meaning it as almost a joke.

  “I worry about you, Ava. Life is nothing without purpose. And ignoring your gift—what’s the purpose in that?”

  The conversation was suddenly too heavy for me. I needed some room to breathe. “So you’re saying I need to quit being such a wimp?”

  She laughed. “Yep. Maybe we need to watch some Die Hard movies or something. Toughen you up.”

  Another thought hit. “Venator,” I said.

  “What?”

  “He asked if I was a Venator—the big guy. Karson. That’s the word he used.”

  Miriam’s face scrunched. “Yeah, no idea what that is. Sounds Italian-ish.”

  “I don’t know, either. But something was off about those two. And that guy Karson seemed to think my vision might mean I was a Venator, whatever that means. What if—” I almost didn’t want to voice the thought. Putting it to words made the possibility more real. Already a small glimmer of hope had sparked in my chest at the mere idea. And hope was dangerous. “What if these Venators have something to do with my visions?”

  Miriam’s face brightened. “Like the word is some sort of clue or something? Some hint about why you’re the way you are? Then I think you have to pursue this. Find out if there’s any connection. I mean, just imagine—what if you and your gift aren’t alone in the world? What if there are others out there with similar powers? Maybe they can help you control it.”

  Control it? Screw that. Hopefully they could help me get rid of it.

  The idea pushed the spark of hope into a flare that made my throat tighten. I might not be ready to try to warn the man about my vision—not when I knew exactly how that would turn out—but Miriam was right: I had to do something. I had to at least try to figure out what the heck a Venator was—and if it might be somehow related to my curse.

  Part of me—the super loud part yelling in my mind—wanted to hide from the word, just like I’d hidden from my visions. But once again, Miriam was right. Life was nothing without purpose. What if the Venators—whatever they were—could help me figure out mine?

  Scary thought. But I was sick of hiding.

  Chapter Two

  What a bullshit week.

  Keep your cool, Karson. I could hear the voice of my Venator teacher, Franklin, ringing in my ear. And if he’d been with me now, he would have reminded me of the obvious: don’t forget there’s a fucking demon sitting next to you.

  The demon who inhabited the body of a young man named Thomas had no idea I wasn’t just an average man, serving as his human liaison and all-around thug. Had no clue I planned to exorcise him—get him the hell back to wherever he’d come from—but the woman we’d encountered at the hospital earlier had almost blown my plan with her stupid psychic thing.

  I tightened my grip on the steering wheel of the new Lincoln Navigator and refused to look at Thomas, seated in the dark next to me, as I ran through the scene with the woman. All the strength of character I possessed had barely kept me from doing something violent to her. Not that I had much character to draw on anymore.

  Fuck character, anyway—I had purpose. And purpose had gotten me through some tough shit.

  Not that the violent urge had lasted long after the initial surge that hit when I thought she might have tipped Thomas off. That desire had quickly shifted to something far needier, hungrier, and more interesting.

  And probably a hell of a lot more dangerous.

  It was the blood that made the desire so strong, so quick. The blood I carried in the tattoos that made me more than human. It wasn’t the woman, I told myself.

  Hell, okay, it wasn’t just the woman.

  I’d managed to put off talking to Thomas about her in the hours since we’d left the hospital. A well-timed call helped give me the time to figure out a good cover story, and by then we’d arrived at the location of his next meeting. One that had lasted well into the night.

  Why the hell had I mentioned the Venators to her? The word had slipped out—mostly because I’d been so damn shocked to hear Thomas’s future on her tongue. The future I had planned for him. It hadn’t sounded pleasant coming from her. But hell, demon hunting was messy business.

  I managed to ke
ep my face blank when Thomas spoke.

  “What information did you get from the woman at the hospital?” he asked. “The whole burning thing—a little close for comfort, wasn’t it?”

  I grunted, but kept my attention fixed on the road ahead. Show no emotion, Karson. Keep your face as hard as stone. Clear your thoughts. One moment of weakness and they will have you. The words reverberated in my mind, as clear as the day I’d first heard them from my teacher, Franklin.

  “Just a stupid prank. College punks.”

  Thomas nodded, accepting my words. The tattoo around my neck itched at his easy acceptance. He thought he had me collared with his blood tattooed into my skin. That it made me his to command.

  Even the idea pissed me off. But I was patient, and this ruse was necessary.

  But not for much longer.

  I yanked on the steering wheel, making a sharp right turn just before Thomas’s penthouse. The young woman at the hospital hadn’t exactly been a kid, but there was a bit of naivëte clinging to her that made her seem young. She could probably pass for a college student though, especially to Thomas. Demons weren’t that observant of things they regarded as unimportant.

  Besides, Thomas was new—to this world, anyway. Who knew how old demons were, in truth? The demon possessing him had taken the young man Thomas only a few months before. He didn’t have his feet on the ground in this world yet.

  It made him vulnerable.

  But keeping him from thinking about the incident too much was important. Because of the tattooed collar, Thomas trusted me. Trusted me as much as a demon could ever trust anyone, that is. But there was another demon out there that Thomas obeyed and reported to. I’d yet to get a glimpse of the fucker. He seemed to leave Thomas to figure shit out on his own more often than not. But he could become a problem if Thomas said too much.

  “She was attractive,” Thomas said, his voice as interested as a scientist noting a bug’s intriguing color pattern.

  I gave him a brief nod and pushed the image of the woman’s shoulder-length blond hair and big green eyes from my mind. But the vision of her slender build and long legs shoved its way in, along with the realization that those legs would wrap around my waist just perfectly.

  Hell yeah, she was attractive. In another time and place…well, another time and place didn’t matter. I was here and now. And in the present, she was a liability who could have ruined everything.

  But I couldn’t help the bit of admiration she stirred in my chest. Not a lot of men stood up to me, let alone a little slip of a girl like her. I knew exactly what I looked like with the scars and tattoos. Not exactly Prince Charming.

  Ava. That’s what the other woman had called her when she’d gone into that trance—or whatever the hell it was. She looked like she was scared of the whole damn world, but she hadn’t backed down when I got in her face.

  “And the fire?” Thomas asked.

  Damn. He was back to that. “They were trying to scare you. It was probably the worst way to die they could think of.” I kept my voice smooth and even, a trick I’d perfected through the years of living among demons. Hiding lies was a necessity, something I rarely thought about anymore. But the girl had thrown me off my game, and I felt oddly unbalanced. I couldn’t afford to be off-balance, not right now. Not with justice so close. Not with command of my own cell so near my grasp.

  “How sweet.” Thomas grinned.

  His expression made my hands clench more tightly around the steering wheel, but he started talking about business—shit I needed to oversee to make sure some fucking party he was throwing next weekend went off without a hitch. I only half listened, but I was thankful he dropped the conversation about the woman. Ava.

  I left Thomas at his downtown apartment, as planned, then headed for Pulse.

  Careful to drive in a way that would make me difficult to follow, I kept one eye on my rearview mirror until I parked safely in the back of the club. Sure, there was next to no chance someone who worked for Thomas—or the demon himself—would happen by and recognize the Navigator I drove, but you never knew. I was alive because I was careful.

  And because I was as much of a bastard as the things I hunted.

  Of course, I didn’t kill humans for fun and energy. Demons fed off of humans, usually during torture. I’d heard there were other ways for them to get the necessary power they needed from us to survive, but I’d yet to come across one who didn’t get theirs the old-fashioned way. Theories—and that’s all the Venators really had—suggested that the demons’ collection of energy from their victims was necessary to maintain possession of a human body.

  But who the hell knew? Venators didn’t spend a lot of time on research. We spent our time hunting them. To eliminate them from this world, but also because their blood ran in the tattoos that gave us our power. Blood that had to be obtained from living, possessed people.

  I’d be damned if we weren’t nearly as fucked up as the demons.

  I walked around the glass and trash-strewn alleyway that separated Pulse from its neighbor: a “massage parlor” that sure did a lot of business at night. Pulse was a ratty old nightclub and a front for a cell of Daemon Venators—an ancient society of demon hunters.

  The Venators were the closest thing I had to family now. Hell, it would be closer to say that Franklin was the closest thing I had to family, because the Venators didn’t exactly have potluck get-togethers.

  With the exception of our local sister cell’s leader, a tough fucker named Mateo, whom I could contact in case of emergency, one had to be a cell leader to be given information on how to reach other Venators. Keeping information on a need-to-know basis kept the Venators alive. A captured man could be tortured until he’d offer his soul, but he couldn’t give information he didn’t know.

  You couldn’t be too careful when hunting demons.

  I knocked—loudly. It was past two o’clock in the morning, and the bar had closed an hour before. With a groan, the heavy door opened, revealing my teacher, Franklin.

  Gray hair ran along the sides and back of his head, light against his dark skin. The glare from the streetlight overhead glinted off the exposed skin on top, where hair hadn’t grown since long before I’d met him. Crow’s feet crinkled around his eyes during the rare times he smiled. But it was the deep wrinkles that cleaved his mouth when he frowned that I was familiar with.

  A hard man, but a good one.

  “Franklin.” I nodded to him, and he jerked his head for me to follow him inside.

  Franklin hadn’t only taught me the ropes, he’d saved me from aimlessly wandering the streets without a hope of ever getting some payback. After my family was killed, I’d worked for months on my own. A damn waste of time. But Franklin had noticed me one night, pulled me off the street, and into his Venator cell. And he’d taught me how to kill demons.

  He gave me my first tattoo with his own hands.

  “How are things progressing?” Franklin headed past the small area where, during working hours, patrons would wait in line to pay a cover charge, before he went through an open doorway into the club proper.

  I pulled off my jacket and tossed it onto an empty table. It landed with a dull thud. Knives only—I didn’t throw guns. “They’re progressing as they should—mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “There was a girl—”

  “Hell, son, I can understand that, but I don’t think right now is the time to be worrying about some pretty thing.”

  I barked out a quick laugh. When was the last time I’d thought of a woman for longer than the time it took to get off? Not since I’d become a Venator, that was for sure. Hell, I’d enjoyed myself, burned off some steam with random women when there were no demons around to take out some of my pent-up energy on, but even that never lasted longer than the night. I couldn’t afford to get attached. And that was a reality I always made clear before making so much as a move.

  I might be an asshole, but I wasn’t a total dick.

  “I
t’s not like that. A woman we saw today. She had some sort of a fit, then started muttering about Thomas dying in a fire.”

  Franklin’s eyes widened slightly, and my stomach tensed. As difficult as it was to get a reaction from the old man, he might as well have shouted or screamed.

  “Give me details, son.”

  “I went to the hospital with Thomas. He was meeting with the hospital’s director—no doubt going to donate money to build some goodwill there. Give him an excuse to spend a lot of time at the hospital. Get an ‘in’ there.” An “in” he’d no doubt use to hunt victims. People leaving the hospital would be easy marks, especially when Thomas didn’t have the time or inclination to hunt more difficult prey.

  By the time I finished describing her trance—or whatever the hell it had been—Franklin was pacing.

  “She wasn’t a Venator, then?”

  “Not that I could figure.”

  “And you’re sure she wasn’t a demon?”

  “I’m not sure of anything. But if she was, she’s the best damn actor I’ve ever seen.” Something in my chest constricted at the thought of the brave woman being taken by a demon. That much moxie being distorted into something…else. I shook off the thought.

  “This doesn’t feel like a random coincidence, considering your timeline.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe we should bring her in. Question her. Find out if she’s a Venator—part of a different cell.” A flash of something lit Franklin’s eye, like he almost relished the idea, but then was gone so quickly I couldn’t be sure I’d even seen it. But I felt every muscle in my body tense in response.

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” I lied. I’d had no plans to find Ava again. “But maybe you can look into other possibilities first.”

  The request stung my tongue in a way the lie didn’t. Lying didn’t bother me, not anymore. But bending to Franklin’s authority was getting harder to deal with by the day. That was the thing about branding yourself with demon blood. You lost the conscience, but gained an authority complex.

  “I’ll ask around. She wouldn’t be the first Venator who’d fucked around with another’s job.” His eyes turned shrewd. “Don’t think I don’t know why you’re doing this, son. You could have cut Thomas’s head off a dozen times by now, but you want to go for the exorcism. See if you can save the human that parasite has latched onto.”