Demon Marked (17 page)

“Goody,” Andre said, making her smile despite the smell of days' old dried sweat clinging to the man in front of her.

The man snagged his voucher and made way for his companion to sign for hers. It was only nine thirty, so they must be after breakfast. Emma's stomach growled at the thought. It had been a long time since she'd eaten ... well, eaten
food
, at least. Her supernatural fix would tide her over for a time, but she'd eventually need something real as well.

“You want to get something to eat after this?” Emma asked. “Eggs maybe?”

“Are you asking me out?”

She snorted. “I'm asking if you want to eat eggs,” she said, willing herself not to blush. This blushing and flirting and tingling was all so
distracting
. How did the average woman make it through years of this mating-dance business?

“Yes, I'll eat eggs with you.” His grin made her think he'd guessed how he affected her and was rather enjoying the mating dance. “But we're going someplace clean. The Southie filth isn't working for me.”

The woman in front of Andre, whose face and hands were spotless despite the fact that her clothes had clearly been worn for several days, turned and shot him a look that would have killed a lesser man. Even Andre shrunk inside his suit and guiltily dropped his eyes to the floor.

Emma waited until the man and woman had disappeared into the dining hall before muttering to Andre beneath her breath. “Good work. Way to bond with the people.”

“Sorry,” Andre whispered, seeming ashamed to have been so thoughtless. Maybe there was hope for this man yet. He wasn't nearly as snobby and elitist as she'd assumed.

“Can I help you?” The dark-skinned woman behind the desk sported even darker bags beneath her eyes. She was wrapped in a purple crochet sweater despite the summer heat creeping into the windowless room. Just looking at her made Emma start sweating.

“I found this. I think it's for one of your lockers here,” she said, pulling the key from her front pocket. “I was wondering if you could help me return it to whoever had it last?”

The woman held out a gray palm. “I'll take it and figure out who—”

“Actually, we're going to need to take a look inside the locker and get copies of any paperwork that will identify who used it recently.” Andre moved to stand beside her.

“I can't do that. Our records are—”

“This key was found at a crime scene,” Andre said in his mobbiest, most lawyery voice. “It won't be hard to get a warrant to search the locker, but then I'd have to bring the police into this, and why inconvenience us all like that?”

So much for letting her take the lead. But she should have known better. Andre wasn't very good at taking orders. It was frustrating, but it was also one of the things she respected about him. She was finding that the man had several admirable traits. He was dedicated, smart, and compassionate, and he knew his business. Add all that to the fact that he knew his way around a firearm, and it was almost enough to make up for the womanizing and the eyebrow waxing.

“Can't we work something out without involving the authorities?” Andre asked.

The woman sighed, obviously not thrilled with the idea of policemen roaming around the shelter. She was in the business of helping people who were—on the whole—as scared of the police as they were of the gang members who ruled the Southie streets after dark. Bringing in the police would dramatically impact her ability to provide food and shelter to people who needed them.

In the end, her concern for her people won out over her need to follow the rules.

“I can let you look inside this locker.
If
the key works, which a lot of times they don't,” she said. “But you'll be supervised by one of our staff, and none of the contents of the locker can be removed without a warrant. You got that?”

“I got it.” Andre smiled his lady-killer grin, but the woman didn't seem amused.

“Stewart!” she yelled over her shoulder, summoning a thin young man from the desk behind her. Stewart wore thick glasses that looked at least half a century old and had skin so dark it made his faded black T-shirt look gray. “Take these two back to the lockers and let them try their key. Don't let 'em take anything.”

Stewart nodded a little too long before jerking his head toward Emma and Andre. He ambled out the narrow door to the office and over to the double doors on the left wall. Emma followed with Andre close behind her as they entered a short hall and approached a second set of doors. Stewart paused in front of them, fiddling with a ring of keys on his belt. His hands trembled as he chose the appropriate key. It took several tries before he managed to slide it into the lock and give it a double turn to the right.

His unsteadiness made her think of one of the girls Father Paul brought back to the halfway house a few years before Emma ran away. Her demon mark had made her tremble all over, like a Chihuahua left out in the snow. The only thing that could calm her down was skin-to-skin contact with other marked people.

Needless to say, she'd been really popular with the boys at the house, despite the fact that she was barely sixteen. Emma had tried not to judge, but a part of her had hated the girl out of simple jealousy. In her heart, Emma believed she'd die a virgin. She never thought she'd be interested in sex. Even if her own mark hadn't made intimacy dangerous to others, the horrors she'd seen in other people's minds would have turned her off to the idea of getting naked with a man.

But for some reason, touching Andre didn't bring back any of those stolen memories. He made her feel safe in a wild, erotic, out-of-control sort of way. But could she really afford to let herself get any more out of control than she had already?

Under normal circumstances, she had to position her fingertips at the base of her victim's skull in order to feed, but she'd fed with her hands in other positions once or twice. Sometimes the dark craving didn't want to wait for its next meal. What if that happened while she was with Andre? What if she accidentally fed on him? Even if she only took a little of his life, it would be too much. He was a good guy, maybe even a great one, and didn't deserve to lose a single day to her demon mark.

But then ... she could always make sure she didn't touch him with her hands. There were positions where her hands would be sure to be busy elsewhere.

Holy Moses, she was thinking about
positions
. She really wanted to go through with this. With Andre ... assuming neither of them was killed first.

“This way, all the way to the back. Don't touch anything.” Stewart motioned for them to enter a large, cavernous room Emma guessed had once been a sanctuary.

It was filled to capacity with twin-sized cots instead of rows of benches. Some of the beds were perfectly made with clean, white sheets and faded blue blankets, but most were piled with scruffy backpacks, duffel bags, and assorted clothes items. It brought home how very many people had no place to call their own and made Emma grateful for her grungy little apartment. Even decades after the demon emergence, there were still families who hadn't recovered from the losses they'd suffered. Second and third generations scrabbled to rebuild their lives in the shadows of the ruins that had changed their lives forever.

“We're looking for number 127,” Andre said as they moved into a smaller room lined with lockers on every side, and more down a hallway to the right.

There were hundreds of them, far more lockers than there were beds for people to sleep in. But some of those beds were probably sleeping more than one—Emma had seen as many as three small children curl up close to their mother for the night. And some of those using the shelter left their belongings in storage. It was easier than bringing everything onto the streets when their seven-day bed pass expired and they had to clear out for a week before applying for another.

“This way,” Stewart said, leading them down the hall, past entrances to the men's and women's changing rooms before stopping at number 127.

“Let me open it.” Andre plucked the key from her hand before she could fit it in the lock. “Just in case.”

“In case of what? In case a bunch of snakes jump out and try to eat my face?”

Andre moved her firmly behind him, next to where Stewart leaned against the wall opposite the locker. “Yes. In case of face-eating snakes. Better my face than yours. You're younger and prettier.”

Emma crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, trying and failing to pretend she didn't enjoy hearing that Andre thought she was pretty. Thankfully, Andre had the locker open seconds later, giving her something else to think about.

“It's empty,” she said, a part of her wanting to kick the damn thing. How could it be empty? What the hell was going on?

“It is. I was thinking it might be.” Andre stood and handed the key back to Stewart. “We won't be needing this, but we will be needing the records of the last several people who checked out this key.”

“Sure thing.” Stewart started back down the hall, followed by Andre and then Emma. Of the three, she was apparently the only one frustrated by their wild-goose chase.

“Why did you think it would be empty?” she asked, giving the scuffed wall a kick or two as they walked, venting her frustration.

“Well ... if your crazy theory isn't crazy, the person after your book probably wants to talk to you pretty badly. If they haven't figured out that Ginger has what they're looking for, they're going to think you can tell them where it is.”

Emma bit her lip for a second, realizing the truth in Andre's words. “Even if they found Ginger and have the book, they're probably going to want to ‘talk' to me. They'll need someone with a demon mark to help them perform most of the spells,” Emma said, continuing despite Andre's grunt at the word
spell
. “There aren't that many of us around.”

“And why's that?”

“Most of us die young. I would have died if I hadn't figured out how to feed myself when I was little. I probably still would have died after that if Father Paul hadn't taken me away from the hospital and kept me safe.” Emma lowered her voice as they entered the big room and the stained-glass window they'd seen from the opposite side of the church came into view. She hadn't noticed it on the way through, but now her eyes were drawn to the way the bright colors made the humble beds beneath seem both sad and beautiful at the same time. “My parents' cult was destroyed, but there are thousands of demon cults out there and more of them forming every day. A lot of people think it's part of the buildup to the final battle between good and evil.”

“Armageddon?” Andre asked.

“Maybe. That's what the man who raised me thought. ‘First Timothy, chapter four, verse one: In later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.'”

“You quote Bible verses.” Andre shot her a look of surprise out of the corner of his eyes. “My mother would love you.”

“Mary already loves me. She always gives me extra garlic bread.”

“That's right.” He smiled, as if pleased by the fact that she and his mom got along.

“She's Catholic?”

“She is and a big believer.” He sighed as they stopped, waiting for Stewart to open the locked doors once more.

As he bent over, Emma caught the slight shimmer of gold lingering behind the man's ears, stuck to the arms of his glasses. Hamma claws ... That's what was making Stewart tremble. He was probably starting to go into withdrawal. It happened with users who'd been on the stuff for years.

Still ... it was strange to see a man like Stewart sparking. Hamma wasn't cheap, and the man couldn't even afford basic laser eye surgery, which had become cheaper than most bicycles.

“But she also talks to her houseplants and thinks they talk back,” Andre said, “so you have to take that into account.”

Emma edged closer to Stewart, continuing to talk to Andre. “But you seem to get along well.” Yep, that was definitely gold dust. She backed away as Stewart opened the door and led them back into the lobby.

“I love my mother.” The tightness in his tone hinted that his family wasn't as perfect as it seemed. “But sometimes I think I'm a disappointment. She really wanted grandchildren.”

“Kids aren't in the picture for you, huh?”

“Nope. What about you?”

“Me?” she asked, shocked that he'd even ask. “Of course not ... I ... No, I've never even thought about it.”

“Because you're still a kid,” he said.

“I am not. I—”

“It will take some time to look up those records.” Stewart interrupted before she could finish her protest. “You want to come back in an hour or so? There's a coffee stand at the next corner.”

“Sure, no problem,” Andre said, leading the way to the door. Emma followed him out into the bright light, but not without a final look back over her shoulder at old Stewart.

He was standing there, trembling, watching them leave. When he caught Emma's eyes, he turned and hurried back through the narrow door into the office, but it was too late. Her instincts were screaming that Stewart knew more about that locker than he was letting on. And that he might just feed that Hamma habit with Death Ministry drugs.

Maybe the gang did have something to do with this, after all. But what?

She had a feeling she'd be able to find out ... but only if she ditched her escort. Whoever wanted her at the homeless shelter, they'd wanted her here alone. Emma knew it wasn't the smartest idea to go back by herself, but she couldn't see that she had a choice.