Demon Marked (10 page)

Oh
...
crap.
She was sweating gold. Gold! The sickness made sense now.

The good news was that she could rest easy knowing she hadn't killed Blue Eyes, after all. He must have overdosed on Hamma claws—the only demon drug she knew of that made users sweat shiny gold glitter—and would have died if she'd never laid a hand on him. If it hadn't been so dark in the alley, she probably would have seen the telltale shimmer all over his acne-speckled face.

The bad news was that he must have slipped ground-up claws into his tequila, the
same
tequila he'd forced down her throat when they'd kissed. For a hard-core addict, drinking ground-up claws would produce a hell of a high, but for someone who'd never touched demon drugs, it would just make them as sick as a fucking dog.

Casual users sniffed tiny amounts of claw dust; they didn't ingest it. Emma had never touched the stuff, but allegedly the high from snorting the claws was mild and enjoyable, with few side effects other than increased wakefulness and “sparking”—breaking out in sparkly sweat. A lot of celebrities used Hamma for exactly that reason. Nothing looked better with a California tan than a little gold sparkle.

Emma probably looked great—like a grungy supermodel on her way to a party; she just
felt
like she was going to die. And maybe she was. Some people were deathly allergic to Hamma claws. One sniff and they were gone.

Shit.
She had to get to a phone ... had to call someone.... Maybe Ginger was okay and would answer her bud. If so, she might know what to do in the case of a possible overdose. She'd earned her good-time girl reputation and had to have had some experience dealing with friends who'd partied too hard.

“Oh ... god.” Emma moaned as she pushed herself into a seated position. Her stomach echoed her displeasure with a violent contraction. The room spun, but Emma managed to totter to her feet and take a few unsteady steps toward the door before she fell to her hands and knees once more. She hissed and hurried to snatch her right hand off the floor, but it was too late. Tiny shards of shattered glass stuck in her fingers, bringing bright red blood to the surface to mingle with the gold glitter of her toxic sweat.

Ugh. She felt about two years old, so unsteady and out of control of her own body. Even if she managed to stand up, she wouldn't be standing for long. There was no way she was going to make it to the door, let alone down the hall to knock on one of her neighbors' doors. She was screwed,
completely
screwed—

“Emma? Emma, are you there?”

Even with her pulse pounding in her ears, Emma recognized Andre's voice immediately. “In here!” she screamed, ignoring the way her heart leapt even as her stomach did another swan dive into her guts. She was excited to hear Andre's voice because she'd be excited to see
anyone
right now. Even Death Ministry members would have been welcome.

Okay... so maybe not Death Ministry members, but just about anyone else.

“Emma, are you—” Andre's voice broke off in a sharp exhalation as he hurried to her side. Emma fought the urge to lean into the arms he wrapped around her and failed. He felt so good, even better than he had earlier in the morning. With a sigh, she let him pull her into a seated position and halfway onto his lap. “What the hell happened? Are you ... You're not okay.”

“No. How did you—”

“Your sister told me where you lived.”

“Oh no, did—”

“Don't worry, I didn't tell her what was happening. No need to ruin her honeymoon, unless there's no other choice.”

“Thank you.” Emma swallowed hard and lifted her eyes to meet Andre's, determined not to barf on the man who'd saved her ass twice in the past two hours. “I came home and found the apartment like this. But whoever wrecked it didn't steal anything. I think it must have been the Death Ministry. I can't think of anyone else who—”

“The body was gone,” Andre said, confirming her fears. “The guy I sent over to pick it up said there was nothing behind the bar.”

“Oh god.” Emma fought another wave of nausea. “They must have found him; they must have—”

“We don't know that. It could have been the police.”

“The police wouldn't have remembered I talked to the guy last night and come over to trash my apartment.”

“No, they wouldn't,” Andre agreed. “But I think we have bigger things to worry about right now. How much did you take?”

“What?”

“How much did you take?” he asked, slowly, clearly, as if talking to someone with very little brain. “A couple hundred milligrams?”

“I didn't take anything. I—”

“You're sparking, Emma.” Andre's lip curled as he glanced down at his suit, now smeared with gold shimmer in the places where her bare skin had brushed against him. “You're covered in Hamma dust.”

“I know, but I didn't take it. I think the guy I was with last night spiked the tequila we were drinking,” Emma said, needing to prove to Andre that she wasn't a demon drug user. After what had happened to his fiancée . . . Well, he obviously didn't need any more drug-related drama. “That must be the reason I passed out. I—”

“I think we both know you wouldn't be sparking now from something you drank several hours ago.”

“No, I don't
know
.” Emma tried to contain her irritation and failed. Andre didn't know her from Adam, but she still resented being called a liar for a second time this morning. She might kill people, but she didn't lie ... at least not to anyone except the investigating authorities. “I don't take drugs.”

“Right.” Andre laughed, a humorless sound that made Emma shiver. “Come on, get up.”

“Wait, I don't think—”

“You've got to get up. It's not safe here, and we have to get you to a doctor.”

“No doctors,” Emma said, panic setting in. “If they test my blood, they'll report me to the police and—”

“That's why we're going to a Conti doctor, someone who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

“But I don't—” Emma sucked in a breath on a gasp as Andre hauled her to her feet, swinging her arm over his shoulders as his other arm went about her waist.

The room spun so fast that colors blurred, smearing before her eyes. Her brain joined her stomach in a heaving pitch, and Emma knew she would have fallen back to the floor if Andre hadn't scooped her into his arms. Her entire body tensed but just as quickly relaxed as she realized Andre was more than capable of keeping her aloft. He had some serious muscles under that suit, the product of all those early mornings in the gym that made Jace poke fun at him for being a vain bastard.

He might maintain the body to please his endless stream of women, but Emma couldn't deny that his strong, capable arms felt nice ... better than nice.

Had a man
ever
held her like this? She couldn't remember, but a part of her wished Andre was holding her for reasons other than the fact that she was too messed up to stand.

“Do you need anything from the apartment?”

“No, I—”

“Good,” Andre said, whirling toward the door. “We're out of here.”

“Oh ... okay ...” She looped her trembling arms around Andre's shoulders and fought the urge to be sick with everything in her, focusing on the way he held her—so tight and close and safe—instead of the revolt being staged in her digestive system.

Why did people take this toxic crap? Surely something that made her feel so wretched couldn't really make anyone feel good. Could it?

“Little Francis,” Andre said, ordering his bud to call his cousin.

“And call Ginger, too—my roommate,” Emma said, biting back a whimper as Andre bounced down the steps, shaking up her insides until she almost lost control of her stomach. “I need to make sure she's safe and that she doesn't come home. At least not alone.”

Andre grunted. “Hey, cousin,” Andre said as Little Francis answered his bud. “I've got a situation. I need Dr. Finch to meet me at your office.”

He paused, listening to his cousin as he pushed the door to her building open with one foot and strode out into the morning light. Emma winced and turned her face into his chest. The light made the spinning in her head worse, made her brain feel like it was going to turn to liquid and come streaming out of her ears.

“Ten minutes ago would be best. It's Hamma claws, so we'll probably need the antivenom. Also see if you can track down Emma Quinn's roommate. Some girl named Ginger—”

“Ginger Spatz.” Emma forced the words out through her buzzing lips. Her entire face was starting to go numb, making her worry she might truly be overdosing. What if they didn't make it to the doctor in time? What if she died and left everyone she cared about to believe she'd been using drugs? She didn't want to go out like that, couldn't stand the thought that she'd disappoint Sam so profoundly.

“Ginger Spatz,” Andre repeated to Little Francis. “If you get in touch with her, tell her to head uptown to one of our safe houses and I'll be in contact soon. Her apartment was trashed, and we have reason to believe the people who broke in might still be hanging around.”

Andre bent down suddenly, making Emma gasp until she realized he was sliding her into the backseat of one of Conti Bounty's many luxury cars. She smelled the well-tended leather of the seats even before she felt the cool, smooth brush of it against her skin. She lay down, pressing her cheek against the cold, and tried to form the words to tell Andre that—assuming she survived—she'd pay for any damage her glittery skin did to his car. And his suit ... and anything else she'd messed up ...

But her lips had gone from numb to frozen. All she could do was moan low in her throat and cling to the hand Andre slipped into hers as the driver pulled out into traffic, speeding toward the waterfront offices of Conti Bounty.

A
ndre watched Dr. Finch wipe the last of the glitter from Em-ma's skin with a damp cloth and struggled not to think about how many times he'd done the exact same thing. He'd lost count of the times he'd sponged Katie down after an especially nasty spark had left her weak and boneless on the bed in their apartment.

The Hollywood glitterati—movie stars famous for sparking in public—got only the best Hamma. The rest of the world's addicts had to take their chances with claws gathered and ground by people who had no idea how to process them safely.

One in every dozen or so batches of Hamma claws was steeped in lye too long, transforming the chemical compound in a way that caused shakes, sweating, vomiting, and occasionally a deadly heart attack or stroke in those unlucky enough to ingest it.

In the end, that's what had killed Katie—a bad bunch of claws had been too much for her emaciated, wasted body to handle. What had started off as a way to stay awake a few extra hours to get in a little more study time before the bar exam had taken her life and destroyed her dreams.
Their
dreams.

They were planning to get married the summer after the bar and move upstate somewhere to practice together. They were going to get out of the city, away from the demons and the Conti family and start fresh, just the two of them.

Instead, Andre had attended her funeral one week and taken his bar the next, determined to hang on to something in the wake of Katie's sudden death. In the years since, he thought he'd put the worst of the grief and sadness and bitter disappointment behind him. But watching Emma twist and moan on the narrow couch outside Little Francis's office as the antivenom worked its way through her system brought back every feeling he'd ever buried—like zombies bursting out of the ground looking for a pound of human flesh.

Emma didn't look a thing like Katie—a curvy redhead with bright blue eyes—but something about Emma reminded him of the only woman he'd ever loved. She fascinated him, just as Katie had.

Maybe it was the way Emma walked like she was ready to take on the world that drew him, making him wonder if she might be the kind of woman who could give as good as she got—in bed and out. Maybe it was the fragility he sensed beneath that tough exterior that made him long to protect her, to stand between her and danger and let her know that she didn't have to be alone. Maybe it was simply how good she'd felt in his arms that compelled him to stay by her side. Carrying her out of her wrecked apartment had awakened feelings he hadn't known he was still capable of. Protective feelings ...

As well as a mess of anger and hurt. He was
hurt
that she'd lied to him, which was absolutely ridiculous. He and Emma were nothing to each other and probably never would be. He had no reason to expect her honesty, and even if he did, there was always the chance that she
wasn't
lying. She could simply be so strung out on claws that she'd convinced herself she had magical life-sucking powers and the ability to take out Death Ministry members three times her size with her killer—