Demon's Hunger (2 page)

He was alone, horny, and in possession of a partially scorched demon bone. Perfect.

Only the last of the three problems was new, but it sure wouldn't provide a solution for the previous two.

Dain Hawkins raked his fingers through the shaggy layers of his dark hair and gave a low, mordant laugh. Moon-spun purple shadows and pale gray light sliced across his denim-clad thigh, then fanned along the row of brick, stucco, and marble vaults of New Orleans's oldest cemetery. St. Louis #1.

He crouched, waiting, hidden by the white Greek-revival tomb at his side—the voodoo queen's tomb. It was covered in small
x's
drawn there for luck and festooned with the offerings of the faithful: votives, flowers, hoodoo money—coins left to buy favors.

But Dain wasn't here for voodoo magic tonight. As a sorcerer, he didn't need that kind of help.

He was here for
hybrids
, brutish creatures that had been human once. Faced with death, they had chosen to allow demon will to overtake their souls, to become slavish minions of the Solitary, a malevolent demon of immeasurable power that wanted only to cross the wall between dimensions and turn the human realm into his own personal feeding farm.

Dain smiled mirthlessly. Not while he breathed.

The air was crisp with a hint of winter chill. He smelled the faintest trace of brimstone, sensed the ripple of evil that hung over the graveyard, a fetid mist.

Yeah, he'd come to the right place.

He rose, the material of his long black coat flowing behind him, an undulating shadow. Walking to the end of the row, he turned and moved on through the city of the dead. Some rows were straight, some twisted, and still others led to blind ends in a tangled maze of family tombs: miniature houses for the dead, complete with low iron fences. Many tombs had been restored since the hurricane; others still bore their crumbled corners, decimated by time and storm, jutting out like barren bones.

Bones
. Dain's lips twisted. He was here for more than the
hybrids
. He was here because of the blackened bone that sat heavily in the pocket of his long coat, burning through the layers of cloth and into his skin like a brand. He hated the feel of it, the revolting aura that was so strong it sucked the breath from his lungs. Demon stink and terrible demon power clung to it.

Weeks past, Dain's contemporary, Ciarran D'Arbois had slammed shut a portal between the demon realm and the dimension of man, and in so doing had maimed the Solitary. The demon's foot had been severed when the door closed, leaving the powerful demon trapped in the pit that had spawned it. Dain had found all that remained in the human realm—a single burnt and blackened bone that carried vestiges of horrific, dark magic.

Since that night, he'd kept the thing locked away in a vault in his home, but he'd dared not leave it unattended while he came to New Orleans. Still, he wondered if he was crazy to carry it about.

Choices, choices. No one to trust but himself. That lesson had been hard learned.

Reflected in the smooth surface of a puddle were the outline of a cross and the round bright shape of the moon. Dain looked up at the top of a nearby vault, at the cross there, and at the statue of the weeping woman on the tomb next to it. His booted feet scattered the reflections as he walked on.

He made no effort to hide his progress. Let them hear him. He was spoiling for a fight, had been for weeks, ever since the night the Solitary had almost crossed over. That night, Dain had learned that the Ancient—the oldest and most powerful of the Compact of Sorcerers—had betrayed them, choosing to ally with the demons. The Ancient had been his mentor, his friend.

Now, his enemy.

Following instinct, Dain navigated the maze of vaults and low iron fences. At length, he came upon a wider space with a lone, black tomb, brick and plaster torn open to reveal a musty, gaping hole. An old rotting casket had been dragged out into the moonlight, the lid ripped off; around it crowded a half-dozen
hybrids
, casting long, menacing shadows.

Their clothing was stained, mottled, heavy with the metallic scent of fresh blood. Dain could tell they had fed recently. Not on the long-decomposed remains from the casket. No, they had hunted and killed before coming here to the cemetery.
Hybrids
liked their prey alive. Their meat bloody.

And human.

It was the only thing that offered even a temporary relief from the endless physical pain of their existence—a small matter that the demons invariably failed to mention when they tempted the dying to become
hybrid
.

With narrowed eyes, Dain studied the group. They had no idea he was here. Normally, they would have sensed the herald of his light magic long before this, but the malevolent power of the charred bone was so great it obscured much. Hell, he was slathered so thick with the demon aura, they probably mistook his presence as just another of their own.

A valuable stealth tool.

Problem was, he was having trouble sensing them as well. The longer he carried the bone on his person, the more inured he became, less attuned to the current of demon magic. A danger, to be sure, but one that could not be avoided.
Hybrids
were robbing graves all over the world without subtlety or discretion, but with what Dain suspected was a definite plan. Until he figured out what the hell was going on, the scorched demon bone wasn't going anywhere without him.

Yeah, him and his bone, inseparable.

Hanging in the shadows, Dain clenched his teeth, battling the urge to call his full power and step into the circle of
hybrids
. While a fight might relieve his tension, it wouldn't get him answers. He'd wait and watch just a little longer. Whatever the
hybrids
were after, it had something to do with the Solitary—and with rotted human corpses.

With a high cackling laugh, one of the
hybrids
yanked something from the open casket before him: a bony forearm and hand, stripped of flesh by years and inevitable decay, held together by fragile remnants of desiccated tissue. Dangling from the moldered fingers was a tattered and rotting cloth pouch.

Frowning, Dain stepped closer. A voodoo gris-gris? A charm bag buried with the dead?

Whatever was in that pouch had demon stink all over it. The damned bone in his pocket heated, the sensation burning, bright and hot, through his coat and jeans and into the skin and muscle of his thigh. Evil called to evil.

The
hybrids
were after that charm bag, which meant he was too.

Dain stepped forward into the moonlight. One of the
hybrids
jerked its head back and spun to face him.

So much for the covert approach.

The thing lunged with a feral cry. In a smooth execution of movement, Dain tucked, rolled, and rose, avoiding the attacking creature, coming up next to the one that held the gris-gris. He plucked the cloth bag from the
hybrid's
grasp. It was red velvet, stitched with red thread.

Old. Very old. Bound by spells to protect the contents and stave off decay in the moist heat of New Orleans. Dain felt rank evil ooze from the small bag and into his hand's flesh and bone. The
continuum
, the dragon current—an endless river of energy that flowed between dimensions—shifted and writhed in protest of the unnatural shift in balance.

With a howl, the
hybrid
he'd robbed swiped at him, a rake of clawed fingers. Dain jerked aside, shoved the pouch into his pocket—the one that didn't hold the demon bone—and leaped back so he was at the edge of the open space, a tomb at his back.

The
hybrids
advanced on him in a loose semicircle.

Dain called up a little more of his power, enough to let the
hybrids
sense his magic, let them know for certain that he was a light sorcerer. That was his warning to them, his single offer of reprieve. They could flee and he would not chase them, or they could attack and he would cut them down.

They hesitated, confused by the impossible mix of light magic and demon aura that clung to him, darkness oozing from the scorched bone that had become his constant companion.

He conjured a six-foot staff of acacia wood, ancient, deadly, and he waited.

Snarling, the closest
hybrid
fell on him like a rabid dog. Declining to summon more of his magic, Dain fought, preferring for now the physical release of punch and thrust and kick, even when they piled on him, six-to-one.

Claws sank into his chest, raking deep, and a fist to the jaw rocked his head back. He gave as he got, a jab with his staff, and then he tossed it high in the air, twisted a
hybrid's
head from its neck, and snapped out his hand to catch his staff on the descent, his fingers slick with black blood.

The
hybrid's
remains bubbled and hissed and, finally, disintegrated in a stinking gray sludge.

Another
hybrid
moved into the place of the first. Dain let emotion take him, rage and pain at the Ancient's betrayal, the memory of his mentor's treachery still cutting as sharp as a finely honed blade. Grief was there, too, and a centuries' old hatred of demons and their ilk, feeding his actions until there was a thick morass of bubbling ooze at his feet.

A single
hybrid
backed away, the only one left standing. It stood shivering, frozen in terror, then fell to its knees before him. Dain stared at it, chest heaving. The charred bone in his pocket heated with a gruesome energy, a forbidden magic, and the
continuum
writhed at the insult.

Temptation wheedled through him, and with it came a foreign and ugly craving for just one more kill.

Kill, kill, kill.

That was new.

What the hell was wrong with him?

The bone, the goddamned demon bone.

Well, it would be disappointed if it wanted to lure him to the dark side. Sorcerers were guardians, not indiscriminate murderers.

Pressing a hand to the deep gouges that scored his chest, Dain spat blood. He was breathing heavily, and his pulse pounded a hard beat in his ears.

"Go," he snarled, and the
hybrid
didn't wait for a second invitation. It scrabbled back like a crab, then rolled and stumbled to its feet, weaving as it ran through the graveyard, the sound of its footsteps echoing hollowly.

Standing in the roadway, Vivien Cairn watched the taillights of her mother's rental car grow smaller and smaller in the distance. She took the first easy breath she'd had in days. Why had she imagined that moving entire time zones away would alter her mother's schedule?

Araminta arrived like clockwork, three times a year: one visit on Vivien's birthday, one visit on Halloween (no explanation for that particular date, but Vivien had long ago ceased pondering the strange workings of her mother's mind), and one visit on the anniversary of the day Vivien's father had walked out. She would call a half hour before her arrival on Vivien's doorstep, and then she would simply appear, her straight dark hair bobbed to her chin, perfectly dyed and trimmed, her thin lips radiating her disapproval, her lush figure and gorgeous face never showing any signs of age.

They never discussed it, but Vivien couldn't imagine her mother surviving in a time before Botox. At least, she assumed it was Botox, because Araminta held on to her youth with amazing tenacity. She looked young enough to be Vivien's sister.

Rubbing her knuckles lightly along her breastbone, Vivien sighed in half relief, half regret. This visit had ended with the exact sentiment that every such visit had ended with for the past fifteen years.

"Vivien," her mother had said moments ago, taking her daughter's hands in a firm grip. Her eyes had been narrow and intent as she tipped her head back a little and studied Vivien under the overhead porch light, her voice ringing with the hollow echo of vast disappointment and despair. "You are your father's daughter in every sense. There is nothing of me in you.
Nothing
."

Vivien Cairn—BSc, MSc, PhD, assistant professor of Anthropology at UTM (University of Toronto at Mississauga), currently on sort-of sabbatical—was the bane of her mother's existence.

"And
why
did you do this to your hair?" Araminta had reached up and flicked the edges of Vivien's spiky new cut.

"I cut it. It's easier this way."

After a paralyzing moment where Vivien had considered physically moving her mother into the car, Araminta had heaved a weighty sigh, the sort of sigh that meant that a nuclear holocaust was about to fall upon unsuspecting humanity. Then with a perfunctory kiss to Vivien's cheek, which Vivien had dutifully stooped to accept, Araminta had turned and left. Thank God.

There was something to be said for routine.

Now, the red taillights winked and disappeared completely as the road was swallowed by the night, and Vivien walked back toward the house.

At the bottom of the stairs, she slowed, glanced about, the winter air cutting through her sweater. Unease crawled through her like a centipede.

She continued up the stairs, then paused on the porch and wrapped her arms around herself. Turning slowly, she scanned the yard, her pulse speeding up just a little.

Something felt
wrong
. There was no particular reason for the chill that touched her or for the uncomfortable wriggling low in her gut, but instinct whispered that she was not alone.