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CHAPTER ONE
STICKY SEPTEMBER SATURDAY NIGHT in Houston, Texas, on a sidewalk outside of The Rollins Pub, where Johnny Rocket played his thunder bass. People in various stages of inebriation mingled and the stink of stale beer lingered. Not the normal hangout spot for a sober dude without a fake ID. But, hey, I had responsibilities and a mostly secret identity.
My name? Rudolph Diamond Davies III. Rude, to my friends. Unofficially, the class clown. The party guy. The one with the uncanny luck. Always ready to be a friend or help out a dude in need. My official assignment: Save life. Prevent death. And other bad things.
I leaned against the brick wall outside the pub and stared at the old oak on the other side of the walk. Anyone else would see an ordinary tree whose ordinary roots buckled the sidewalk—if they noticed it at all. Me? I saw a portal to and from the Otherworld.
Otherworld, as in the place where faeries, demons, and angels lived. Sometimes they traveled through portals, aka gates, into the human realm. Sometimes they even came with good intentions.
I had it on good authority, however, that a visitor planned to bust through tonight bleeding bad vibes and looking for trouble. As the youngest (and only) faery seer apprentice to the (only) full seer in town, I’d use my magic to turn them around. Send them back.
I kept my gaze on the tree. Didn’t even blink. Until I spotted a girl I knew from senior English out of the corner of my eye.
Melody. Pretty name for a cheerleader-next-door kind of girl. Wavy blond hair brushed her shoulders. Her blue eyes sparkled when she saw me. I didn’t know what to do except smile. And stare.
She didn’t look like herself.
She wore red stilettos so tall and sharp, they practically sparked on the pavement. A short black skirt swung high on her thighs and a white tank hugged her every considerable curve. Definitely different clothes than she wore Monday through Friday.
Her cheekbones seemed a little high and sharp. Her mouth looked more severe. A worry line had erupted in the center of her forehead.
It wasn’t just the clothes and the changes in her face that bothered me, though. She had a halo around her body the color of mud. What psychics would call a bad aura. A portent of violence—against herself or someone else? Either way, worry-making.
She pulled a pack of smokes from a tiny black purse and lit one as she sidled up to me. She elbowed me in the ribs, trying to be playful and failing—because that worry line? It didn’t go away.
“Hey, Rude,” she said in her husky voice.
“Hey, yourself. Didn’t think I’d see you here.”
“Same goes. What are you up to?”
“Holding up the wall,” I said. Not exactly a lie. “Too bad I can’t get in. Johnny Rocket’s sounding real good. What I can hear of him, anyway.”
She laughed. The line in her brow stayed through that, too. “How is it that a guy who throws the best keg parties in town—parties that practically the entire school comes to—doesn’t have an ID for someplace like this?”
“I plead innocence.”
“You?”
“Yeah, me. Really. You feeling okay?”
“Do I look like I have a fever or something?” She leaned in close, I guess so I could feel her forehead and give my best non-MD opinion. So close I could smell her subtle amber perfume. And underneath it, something stranger.
A sickly sweet scent, like cough syrup. And sulfur.
I took a deep breath to be sure and blew it out slow.
“Well?” she asked.
“You seem like you’re in trouble.” I thought twice about saying the second thing, but the way she looked? And the smell? I had to know, and the best way to do that was to use the element of vocal surprise. Best case scenario, she’d just think I was weird. I was okay with that. Worst case? I hoped we didn’t go there.
So I said, “And you smell like a demon.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not nice.”
I hadn’t meant it to be, exactly. I held her gaze.
She fidgeted under my über-scrutiny.
“I repeat: trouble. What’s up, Melody? I can help.”
“No faery seer apprentice can help me,” she said. But not convincingly. Spoken like somebody fishing for confirmation or information.
I’d wanted her to spill her guts about the problem. Or if something had possessed her (hey, it happened), it might un-possess her and run. I hadn’t expected her to spout off about my extracurricular activities. One, because she shouldn’t have known. Two, because she shouldn’t have known.
My turn to fidget. “Will you tell me what you mean by that?”
She took a drag on her smoke. Her fingers trembled. “I have a confession. I didn’t come here to see Johnny Rocket. I came to see you.”
“How?”
“I took the bus.”
“No,” I said. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I’ve been having some seriously screwed-up feelings lately. I’m angry all the time.”
“You have a lot to be pissed off about.”
She held my gaze. “You, too?”
“Look, people talk. You know that. I heard some stuff at school.”
“From?”
“It’s not important, Melody.”
“The hell it’s not. Probably those girls pretending to be my friends.” She raised her hands and made air quotes for emphasis.
I nodded. One person’s private tragedy could become another person’s juicy gossip. In Melody’s case, the gossip went like this: Her stepfather beat the crap out of her. She showed up at school with a sunrise of bruises and two black eyes about a month ago. She left home. Went to stay with Beth Barrett, everyone’s favorite science fiction geek, for a couple of days that turned into a more permanent arrangement.
The stepdad had been arrested and then let go because neither Melody’s mom nor Melody pressed charges. Mom loved him more than she loved her own daughter. And he terrified Melody.
Although the people at school talked about all this like it’d been a one-time thing, I had my doubts.
“Those girls who started the rumors are assholes,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said. “This anger thing? It’s not about him. It’s not even about my…mother. It’s like power surges or something. I can’t control when it happens. I can barely keep from punching my fist through the wall. And I know stuff. It just pops into my head. Like what you are. And where to find you—like I could…”
“What?”
She hesitated. “Smell you. From all the way across town.”
“The only people I know who can do that aren’t human. But you are.”
“Not entirely.”
I blinked at her.
She flushed. “I know it sounds crazy.”
“No.”
“Maybe not to you. You’re a freak who hangs out with other freaks.” She sucked in a breath. “No offense.”
I tried not to take any. After all, it was kind of accurate. “So if you’re not one-hundred-percent human, what else are you?”
The words tumbled out fast and low, for my ears only. “Demon, I think. Like you said.”
I couldn’t think of a worse thing. Not one. “How?”
“I found some stuff in my mom’s diary. Stuff about my real dad. I was looking for money, you know? Sometimes she hides bills in there. I mean, she hasn’t written anything in it for years, but she still keeps it. And it says outright that my actual dad wasn’t human. That she had suspicions when she met him, but she didn’t find out for sure until after
I was born. She said my eyes were red, Rude. They turned blue, the way other kids’ eyes start out blue and turn brown.”
I studied her face. She didn’t seem to be making up any of this. She spoke the dead-on truth as she understood it. “Woah.”
“Exactly. What do I do?”
I had no idea how to answer that question. I’d heard of human and Otherworld hybrids before, but I’d never seen one. I’d certainly never met one. If I found out something like that about myself, I’d be terrified of what I might do to other people. Non-humans…well, they weren’t human. They didn’t think the same way. They didn’t have the same kinds of morals. They did bad things.
I swallowed hard. “Did you ask your mom about it?”
“You’re kidding, right?” She peered at my not-kidding face. “Okay, I kind of did. I said so this is a joke and she stared at me. So I said this is like a metaphor and she looked away from me. I said this is real? and she told me to get out. That was the last thing that happened before I left home.”
“After your stepfather hit you.”
She winced.
“Sorry. When was the last time you had an anger flash?”
“Two nights ago.”
“Anything weird happen?”
“I destroyed my trash can. You know, in my room.”
“Define destroyed.”
“One second it was normal and the next it, like, melted. I completely lost my mind. I spent the rest of the night curled up in a ball in the closet.”
Holy crap. “You ever done anything like that before?”
“Two weeks ago. To the steering wheel of my car. Well, Beth’s car. Her mom was so beyond mad. Which is why I took the bus.”
“How many times has it happened total?” I asked.
“Twelve.”
“And you didn’t come to me until now?”
Her voice started out low and rose with each word. “I would’ve if I’d known about you before this afternoon.”
Her complexion took on a red cast. This time, she didn’t look embarrassed. Frustrated, maybe. Frustrated could lead to mad, which I didn’t want to see. Not yet, anyway. I held up both hands to signal a truce.
She looked away. Cocked her head. “What’s that?”
The bark of the oak tree had begun to shimmer. The Otherworld gate had been activated. Another thing humans couldn’t usually see.
I put out my arm. Pushed her behind me.
“What?” she asked again.
“It could be dangerous,” I said.
“So could I.”
Well, yeah. But I had to choose my battles.
A bang and crunch behind us had me throwing a desperate glance over my shoulder. Just a couple of bouncers setting down and flipping open a chest filled with bottled water and ice.
I faced front again. A small horde of grackles had landed in the branches of the tree, and the gate within the trunk had stopped shimmering and started to pulse. The brown of the bark brightened until it bled white. All the hair on my body stood straight up. Luckily, I had a buzz cut or I’d have looked like Einstein, only with orange hair.
“Jesus, Rude!” Melody whisper-shouted in my ear.
“Welcome to my world.”
Just Melody and me and whoever traveled through the tree. No one else could see. They talked and laughed. Lit smokes and, from the smell, joints. They flirted as if the world around them was safe.
The tree groaned. Split wide open to reveal a pair of thick, black lace-ups. Attached to two stocky legs in black pants. The being also wore a belt with a flashlight, a radio, and a gun. A cop’s blue shirt, silver badge and all—official HPD wear. His arms came through next, brown and brushed with fine, black hair. I marked the pinky ring on his finger and knew him before I saw his face and met his watchful gaze.
“Officer Burns,” I said.
He looked me up and down. Curled his lip as if he found Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts and sneakers distasteful. “Rudolph Diamond Davies.”
“That’s ‘Mr. Davies’ to you.”
Melody took hold of my shirt. Shook it to get my attention. “A cop?”
“No, he’s just dressed like one. He’s faery.”
“An imposter faery cop?”
“Chill. I’ll handle him.”
Or them. Because where Burns went, his evil twin, Officer Reid, always followed.
Sure enough, Burns stepped away from the gate. Two seconds later, redheaded, freckled Reid stepped through the tree’s gate and onto the sidewalk, beer gut hung over his belt. He got in my face, nose-to-nose.
“We heard something bad’s getting ready to go down,” he said. “If you know anything, Davies, you’d better spill it now.”
I shoved my index finger into his chest. “I heard you were the bad thing.”
He ignored that. “The King sent us. He’s concerned.”
Didn’t he always? Wasn’t he always? At least, the one and only time I’d met these busters before, the Faery King had ordered them to make my best friend’s life a living hell. Kevin had been Joe-normal before they came on the scene. After a whole lot of imminent mortal danger, he’d ended up a go-between. A liaison between the human and faery races.
“Why didn’t you contact Kev?” I asked.
“That was our intention. We were to go from here to his home. But you’re here, so we’re asking you and you’re going to tell us.”
“Or what? Arrogant much?”
Reid thinned his lips. His hands curled into fists.
Burns laid a hand on his partner’s shoulder. Reid seethed, but he backpedaled two steps. Out of my immediate space.
“The King wouldn’t have sent us if it weren’t important,” Burns said. “All the signs in our realm point to something terrible about to happen. We know it begins here. That’s all we know.”
His words faded into silence. Like, actual silence. Although the crowd outside the pub never noticed the gate or anyone walking out of it, they sure noticed the sudden appearance of two officers of the law. I glanced over my shoulder. Caught sight of two dudes walking away from us fast. Probably the guys with the pot. Everybody else resumed talking, only lower-key than before.
I felt hot. Hotter than usual for a September night. I wiped away trickles of sweat headed for my eyes and focused on Burns again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He moved in front of Reid and spoke low. “What about your master? Did he say anything to you?”
I bristled at master. I had a teacher. Oscar. Owner of a damned good Tex-Mex restaurant by day, faery seer by night. “Just that some troublemaker would be coming through the gate tonight.”
He brushed his hair back from his forehead with both hands. “Nothing else?”
The way he looked and the desperate-hopeful way he asked the question had me pulling my cell from the front pocket of my shorts and dialing right away. I tried Oscar’s land line first. Six rings and voice mail. Same with the cell. Not unusual for him to be out. He could be on a mission like I was. Or at the club with his boyfriend, Harvard.
I texted him. Wiped my eyes again.
Melody tugged on my shirt again. “Rude? What’s going on?”
I glanced over my shoulder. “No idea, but I’m gonna figure it out. And, hey, don’t worry about these two. They’re not here for you.”
“It’s not them,” she said. “I don’t feel right.”
Officer Burns sidestepped into my line of sight. “We need your full attention, Davies.”
“Just a minute,” I said.
I turned on my heel and got a full-on gander at Melody. She had that frustrated, red look that’d made me nervous before the King’s faux officers showed up. Also, a wave of heat flowed off of her. More sweat beaded at my hairline.
My heart thumped in my chest. “Is this how it felt before? When you melted the trash can and the steering wheel?”
She nodded.
“Calm down. Deep breaths.” I took one and blew it out in a rush.
She followed my example. Once. Twice. Three times. It didn’t cool the heat. Her aura took on a distinctly fire-and-smoke color.
Reid paled behind him. “Look at her.”
“Holy Mother,” Burns said.
She was burning up. She’d go nuclear any second. Melt something. Or someone. If she didn’t cool down. If—
I bolted for the ice chest. Shouldered the couple of people standing around it out of the way. Wrestled it off the ground and ran back toward Melody and the faery cops.
I heaved the ice at Melody. It rained over her in a fall of white, and most of it shattered and scattered on the concrete like pebbles. The rest hung in her hair and stuck to her clothes. Slid down her skin in melted streams that turned to steam.
Steam.
Now people stared at us. At her. One girl’s laugh rose above every other noise, then cut off.
Melody pressed her hands against her eyes. Turned away.
I caught sight of something strange on her back. Something her tank top didn’t cover. Black and grey on her skin. A tattoo. Since when did Melody have ink?
Since when did Melody have ink that writhed like snakes?
I took a step toward her. “Melody, look at me.”
She shook her head. “It’s not working.”
“What’s that on your back?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. The heat streaming from her rose like waves rose from asphalt at high noon in August. Meltdown imminent.
Burns saw it, too. He pulled back his arm and punched her in the side of the head. Any human girl would’ve lost consciousness. Ended up on the ground, probably with a concussion.
Not Melody. She turned on Burns, face screwed up in fury, and kneed him in the balls. He clutched his crotch and went down.
If ice didn’t work and she couldn’t be knocked out, that left magic. I could banish an Otherworld being back to its own world, but she was part human. She belonged here.
I could blunt powers. I couldn’t counteract them all the way, just enough to keep them from working one hundred percent. It’d saved my life more than once. I’d ended up scarred instead of dead.
I closed my eyes. Found the still place inside my belly where my magic lived. It pooled there like water, cool and dark and deep. Shone like a light illuminated it from the inside.
Demon (The Faery Chronicles Book 2) Page 1