Demon's Daughter: A Cursed Book (12 page)

I drew the blade across my palm and dripped my blood into the center of the trap. I stepped back, carefully keeping away from the chalk and the salt-sage lines, then picked out a match from the pocket and scraped it along the side of its box. The match flared to life, and I tossed it into the middle of the circle on the drops of my blood.

My blood caught fire and the world ripped open, revealing a gaping wound of fire. The scent of sulfur and smoke hit me like a slap, and I forced myself not to gag. This close, I could feel the heat from Hell making me sweat, beads of it trickling down my face.

A scrawny Red demon tumbled out of the portal, landing right in the trap and closing the door behind it. Manny immediately switched to English, reading a passage he had chosen from the Bible to annoy the demon. It got to its feet, saw where it was, then paced and snarled.

Yup. I had officially pissed off a demon.

“Do you understand me?” I asked.

It hissed and choked something at me. I couldn’t tell if it was attempting to speak, or deliberately making animal noises. I asked again in Spanish, and got the same ugly response.

“I take that as a no,” I said. I huffed out a breath. Time to try another tactic. “If you understand me, nod your head.”

The demon snarled harshly. I frowned. So far this interrogation was not going as planned. If I’d been dealing with a human, at least I could’ve used my fists to get the truth. I waited a second longer, then moved onto my next question.

“Do you know my sister?”

The demon’s lips contorted. I wasn’t sure what it was doing, until I realized the corners of its mouth were twitched up. It started snapping, chittering and jumping up and down. It definitely knew about my sister.

“Is she a cambion?”

It snorted and snarled harshly.
Okay then.

“Is she a Nephilim?”

The demon got excited and paced even quicker, chattering something I couldn’t have kept up with even if I spoke demon. Maybe I was wrong, and Dro was a Nephilim after all. I could have been letting skepticism and paranoia get the better of me. Dro aside, it wasn’t like I came across half-angels every other day.

“Are you trying to kill her?” I asked the demon.

The creature stopped pacing and stared at me. Then it started convulsing. My free hand dropped to my hip, finding the hilt of my hatchet. My other hand gripped my knife tightly as the demon started to make a sharp, hacking sound.

Then I realized it was laughing at me.

It sounded like it was trying to choke down broken glass, but there wasn’t anything I could do about the way a demon laughed.

Except stop it.

Knowing I wouldn’t get any more information from it unless I got a crash course in demon-tongue, I decided the conversation was over. I turned my head slightly so I could keep my eyes on the demon while talking to Manny.

“Get ready,” I told him.

Manny stopped the prayer. I walked towards the edges of the salt circle. The demon slowed its chuckling and watched me intently.

I hesitated for a moment longer. I’d never faced a demon so directly before, where I could stand calmly and not have to worry about fighting for my life. I thought I would have felt stronger, less afraid than I did. But I couldn’t hold back the fear that made my heart rattle in my chest. I couldn’t keep myself from thinking that when I let the demon out of the circle, it was going to be faster than me. I had plenty of scars to prove just how quick and savage demons could be.

But my fear didn’t matter. Dro did. Manny and Max did. If I let that fear overcome me, the demon would go after them. That was something I could not–
would not
– let happen.

I gripped my weapons tighter, then broke the circle with my boot.

My first mistake was assuming I knew what the demon would do. I thought it would jump at me the first chance it got.

I was wrong. It ran in the opposite direction. Down the street.

“Shit,” I hissed, taking off after it.

Manny called after me, but I kept running. I had loosed the demon from the trap. I was the one who had to kill it before it slaughtered some blissfully ignorant Texan in the middle of the night.

The Red demon was fast, weaving its lean body around cars and through down the suburban street, toward the center of the town. It had a head start on me, but I had spent a good portion of my life running from cops, feds, thugs, and monsters. The only difference was that I was the one doing the chasing this time.

When we hit downtown Amarillo, the Red made a sharp turn into an alley that almost tripped me up. I caught my footing and swerved around the alley after it.

At the same moment the Red decided to jump me.

It rammed into me with the force of a linebacker, knocking me hard onto my back. My head smacked the pavement, dazing me for a second. That one second was all the opening the Red needed.

Its claws slashed across my chest, right under my throat. I gasped from the pain, and again when its claws sliced along my stomach, not deep enough to eviscerate me but deep enough to hurt. I wondered why the demon hadn’t taken the chance to kill me yet. Then I saw the gleam in its black eyes and the twisted smile on its face.

It was playing with me, the same way a cat plays with a mouse in its paws.

While the demon was slowly cutting me to ribbons, I was prying my hands free from under the Red’s weight. My knife was still in my hands, but using it was more of a challenge than I wanted it to be, since the demon refused to move. It leaned forward and raked its claws across the side of my face, just barely missing my eye. I winced, but didn’t scream. In my experience, the more you screamed, the more your attacker wanted to hurt you.

I shoved against the Red’s leg, pushing the throwing knife into its smooth skin. It howled, but didn’t loosen its grip. I got my arm under it and forced it up, relieving some pressure on my chest. It leaned forward and slashed at my throat with its claws. I bit back the scream this time because I thought it had killed me. All it took was an ounce or two of pressure to make someone bleed out from a neck wound. But the Red had shifted just enough for me to buck my hips and throw it off before my throat was ripped out. All I got were paper cuts.

We turned and twisted on the hard concrete. The Red didn’t want to let me go, but I came up slashing with the knife, just as the demon lashed out with its claws. They tore through my jacket and shredded the flesh beneath.

Pain was everywhere, but I didn’t stop moving. I grabbed my hatchet with my free hand, swinging and catching the Red in the arm with it. I’d been going to its neck, but I took what I got.

We were on our feet when the Red started slashing at me again. Now I had
really
made it angry. I stayed away from its claws, but was completely aware that I was being backed toward the wall. I kicked out, catching the Red in the shin. I roared in fury and swung at my head. I ducked low and shoved out with the knife. The demon batted the blade away, making it clatter on the ground.

The Red grabbed my arm and squeezed, its claws puncturing my bicep. I dodged its other strike and kicked its knee. The demon tried to pull me down with it, but I reached down for another blade. I found the holy water instead.
No time to care,
I thought. I popped open the plastic cap and threw it on the Red.

It let me go and screamed as the blessed water boiled on its face. I winced at the awful, screeching sound, then darted forward and used my hatchet to cut open the Red’s throat. Hot, black demon blood splashed onto my shirt, like bubbling oil from a skillet. I slammed into the Red’s chest and started hammering my hatchet into it. The Red scratched wildly at my shoulders. I ripped out the hatchet and pounded it into the Red’s face. Then again. And again.

It finally stopped moving, dropping off my blade and disintegrating to a pile of ash at my feet. I scattered the ash with my boot. I’d never seen a demon reform itself, and I didn’t want to think it was possible, but who knew what supernatural monsters were capable of. I stepped away, and then the swell of pain hit me.

My chest and stomach ached, my throat and face stung fiercely, my arm burned angrily, and my head was pounding. Adrenaline was keeping my hands shaking and my heart racing. I picked up my fallen knife and sheathed it inside my jacket. I put the hatchet back on my hip. I closed my eyes, inhaling the cool night air.

Dro was going to kill me for coming back like this, but I had learned from the experience. Dro was likely a Nephilim, and the demons probably wanted her alive. Also, expected the unexpected with demons, and never, ever,
ever
summon one. I tilted my head back, wincing as I stretched out my neck. I pressed my fingers to the scratches and opened my eyes to look at the blood when I caught sight of something on the roof of the building in front of me.

Two human shapes stood vigilantly next to one another, their attention on me. I couldn’t really see their faces, but one of them had light hair, the other dark. Both of them wore long white coats, and the way they were staring made me nervous.

Before I could do anything, they turned and vanished into the night, blinking out of existence, like they had never been there at all. Maybe I had imagined them. I had gotten some good hits to the head. Even if they were real, there was no way was I going to try and follow them. I was in no condition for another fight against two people who would be fully charged and ready to kick my ass.

Still, imagined or not, I would be on the lookout for them. I had a highly visual memory, and knowing who to watch for was something I had always done to keep myself and Dro alive.

Chapter 7

I’d expected Dro to freak out when she saw me stagger back to the house covered in scratches and blood. I’d even expected Manny to freak out. But I hadn’t expected Max’s reaction.

“Seriously, did you want to be Lady Terminator as a kid or something?” he scolded from the porch as I gingerly peeled off my lucky jacket.

“Never saw it,” I muttered, checking the wounds on my body.

“Get your butt in the house so I can heal you, Constance,” Dro ordered, pointing at the door angrily.

I raised my eyebrows, then gave her a small smile. “Bossy, bossy,” I teased.

She wasn’t in the mood. “I wouldn’t have to be if you had been careful,” she emphasized, the anger in her voice not matching with the concern in her eyes.

“I don’t always hunt demons on week nights,” I pointed out, walking into the living room.

“And you had better not do so again,” Manny said. His arms were folded over his chest and his frown was deep.

“Relax,” I sighed, dropping onto the couch. “It’s off my bucket list now.”

He narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t fill me with encouragement.”

I didn’t reply because I felt Dro’s fingers on my damaged flesh. The hot and cold pins-and-needles feeling zipped over my skin, lighting up my nerves. I couldn’t keep from wincing, just like Dro couldn’t keep from pressing her lips into a line and looking depressed. But it wasn’t her fault. It was mine, and I’d tell her that when we had our talk later.

As Dro healed me, Max came out of the kitchen with a cloth and a bowl of water. He sat beside Dro and began mopping up my blood. I raised an eyebrow at him as he wiped my skin clean.

“What’s with the pampering?” I asked. “I’m not your type,” I said, tilting my head toward Dro.

Max snorted. “Definitely not. I like sane women.”

I glared at Max, but he was getting used to my attitude and angry stares. He just shrugged it off and moved for the wound on my neck.

“But I figure I can do this, so the girl who actually
is
my type won’t have to…”

I turned my head to see what his problem was. Then I realized he had pushed my hair back from my neck, and seen my tattoo.

Max looked horrified, edging away from me slowly.

“Are you… Are you really?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Is she really a what?” Manny asked suspiciously.

I brushed my hair with my hand, hiding the tattoo behind my ear. Dro gave me a worried look.

“One of the
Espanis de Sangre
,” Max breathed. “A Blood Thorn.”

The room fell into a deadly silence, everyone suddenly nervous about what I would do. Didn’t matter that I wouldn’t hurt Max or Manny any sooner than I would Dro. Once someone hears about the Blood Thorns, they tend to get anxious.

I couldn’t blame them. The
Espanis de Sangre
were about as ruthless a drug cartel could get. They controlled the drug and trafficking trade just beyond the Texan border, terrorizing people living in Ciudad Juárez. They had a highly trained security team with more guns than the cops, more money than the Mexican president, and a reputation for killing their enemies gruesomely. They would leave rose thorns in pools of blood near the bodies they had cut into pieces, near the skin they had flayed, or the heads they had severed. They were heartless, soulless butchers with no tolerance for disrespect or disloyalty.

And I had been one of them.

Dro was the first to speak, her voice a careful whisper. “She isn’t one of them anymore. We never had a choice.”

“What the hell did you do for them?” Max asked.

“And why didn’t you tell us?” Manny demanded right after.

I said nothing, suddenly finding my hands more interesting. I’d done terrible things for the Blood Thorns to keep us breathing. Things that still haunted me. I’d never be able to get rid of the memories, but ignoring them helped. Sometimes.

“She isn’t going to hurt either of you,” Dro insisted. “Constance did what she had to do to keep us safe. She always has.”

“Which was what?” Manny asked with a hint of bitterness.

“Hurt other people,” I answered grimly, setting the silence again. “Killed them if I had to.”

“Connie,” my sister pleaded.

“It’s too late, Dro,” I sighed. “They were going to find out sooner or later. They should know.”

I looked at the Garcias, knowing that as soon as they heard my story, they were going to throw us out of their house and call the Marshals, or the DEA, or both. But they had been kind to us, the first people to genuinely care for us since our parents. They deserved the truth.