Blood Trinity (Belador #1)(9)
Boulders started falling away to each side, parting to make an opening. She took one quick look behind them for Kizira. Quinn might not want to hurt his evil-eyed honey, but Evalle did. If not for the Medb she wouldn’t be facing imprisonment—or worse—for shifting.
“Let’s go.” Tzader grabbed her arm and dragged her through the opening. “Seal that mother, Quinn!”
Quinn’s chant was lost in the sound of rocks piling in behind them.
When Evalle caught her footing she was above ground.
In daylight. No shelter within a mile.
An August sun blistered the desert landscape, and it blistered her.
“No!” She curled inside the robe, pulling the thin protection around her. Skin on the back of her exposed hand started turning a nasty green color.
Tzader and Quinn shouted something, but her screams drowned them out. Heat scorched through the blood vessels in her arm and into her body, carrying the poison into her system.
She wouldn’t face imprisonment after all.
The sun would kill her first.
CURRENT DAY
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
ONE
Evalle kept a city block between her and the Cresyl demon skulking along Peters Street through one of the riskier sections of downtown Atlanta after dark.
Three-in-the-morning dark. Graveyard quiet for a Sunday morning. Where were all the people leaving the bars? There should be more on the street than this.
But more importantly, who had sent a Cresyl demon into this territory—again—and why? Second time in ten days, and she wouldn’t have identified this one so quickly if not for having studied up on them after the last one showed up and ruined her day.
So many nonhumans to learn about, so little time. Especially while hunting them. But the last Cresyl sighted in Atlanta had disappeared before causing any trouble.
This time, they weren’t so lucky. A human had died, and in a suspicious manner for a demon attack. A death that meant trouble for Evalle in the worst way with VIPER.
The body of a young female had been mauled with only the heart missing. Worse had been the stink of sulfur, which told her exactly how nonhuman the attack had been. But that didn’t make sense. A demon had to ingest the entire human to take a soul, so why only one organ? Why maul the body?
It didn’t smack of demon. It smacked of the way Alterants had decimated bodies in the past.
Was someone intentionally trying to make the killing appear as though an Alterant had attacked the woman?
Or am I just being paranoid?
She wished Tzader and Quinn hadn’t both been called out of town. They could sort reality from paranoia. She hadn’t been really good at doing that for herself since surviving their escape from the Medb two years ago.
Had the Medb sent this demon?
Were they still trying to get her?
But that didn’t make sense either. Cresyls were South African and not Celtic, therefore they weren’t the kind of demon the Medb would use.
Stop with the crazy thoughts and catch that friggin’ thing sneaking around the city. If she handed proof of what had killed the human to VIPER before they opened an investigation, she wouldn’t face even suspension. If not, the first finger would point at her the minute they found out about a ripped-up human.
Always worked that way.
Guilty beyond doubt. Burden of proof on me, no matter how much I prove myself.
Bastards.
She’d never harmed a human, but she was an Alterant after all, profiled in the purest sense of the word as a predatory threat for nothing more than breathing their air.
Even temporary suspension would be unbearable, because it meant having her powers stripped to a minimal level. That would leave her practically defenseless in a city where preternatural beings moved silent and deadly.
With purpose.
Like the being that crept along steadily ahead of her.
If she ran around Atlanta without her powers, it’d be open season on her and she’d end up on a slab in the morgue next to that poor woman missing a heart.
Much as the idea of losing her powers gave her the shakes, her greater worry would be that the sudden stripping of powers might trigger an involuntary shift into her beast form out of a natural instinct to protect herself.
That would end any question of her guilt as far as VIPER was concerned, and she’d be doomed.
She’d face a room full of demons to avoid that scenario. Besides, VIPER needed her out here working. She had the best informants in the city when it came to supernatural intelligence.
That’s how she’d found this demon in so little time.
The Cresyl stumbled, caught his balance, then stopped as though stuck in place. Dividing her attention between him and her path, she barely sidestepped a pile of putrid-smelling ick on the sidewalk that he’d left in his wake.
Great … like walking behind a horse. Jeez. Didn’t they have any sense of cleanliness?
He—the demon’s gender as determined by the size of his horns—glimmered in and out of shape, appearing more as shadow and mist than anything lifelike to unsuspecting humans at three in the morning. Even through her dark sunglasses, Evalle’s natural night vision picked up his bony spine, slinking tail and leathery skin as clear as a high-resolution image.
Why was he moving at such a sluggish pace? Cresyls were generally quick and dangerous … and traveled in pairs.