Ruined (The Eternal Balance #1)(49)

The first thing that came to mind was to make her wait outside. But she was determined to be in the thick of this. To prove that she could handle whatever my life might throw at her.

I’d made her wait around the corner on the way over when I saw a man try to rob an elderly lady. A quick round with him in the alley a block over and I felt a little more at ease. It didn’t sate the demon completely, and wasn’t nearly as potent as the demon kills, but it took the edge off the ache.

We took a seat as the bartender eyed Sam, then turned to me. “What’ll it be, Tainted?”

“Excuse me?”

“Drink,” the scruffy thing behind the bar spat. It wasn’t a demon. I didn’t think, anyway. It smelled wrong. Different from what I was used to, but most certainly not human. Then again, my nose was off lately. I hadn’t caught a whiff of the bastard that attacked Sam on campus, and I’d been standing right there. “As in, what do ya want?”

“Coors,” I said, scanning the room. Except for me, Sam, and the bartender, the place was empty.

Sam nodded. “Same for me, please.”

The bartender disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he placed two open bottles on the counter without asking for ID. I eyed them for a moment, then looked up. “What?”

“Just don’t get many of your kind in here.” He inclined his head toward Sam and flashed her a flirty smile. “Hers either. Humans tend to keep their distance from places like this.”

“My kind?”

“Tainted.” He tipped back his own glass and set it down on the bar with a clatter. “With a human no less. An odd sight.”

I took a swig of the beer and almost spit it back out. Crap was warm. “Mind elaborating?”

The bartender laughed and poured himself another drink. “Seriously?”

I set down the beer. I wasn’t in the mood to play guessing games. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

The bartender sighed. He rolled his eyes and grabbed the counter rag. Swiping it back and forth over the same spot, he said, “’Course not. Your kind doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. Can’t say as I blame ya, though. The normal demons simply got trapped in human forms and have limited natural resources. You Tainted have to share your space. Raw deal, man. Raw deal.”

I gripped the beer in an effort to keep Azirak down. The demon was getting impatient and it seemed to have a singular dislike of the thing behind the counter. I felt the same way. Neither of us would be opposed to a little dessert.

The bartender tossed the rag over his shoulder and held out his hand. “Name’s Heckle. Bel Heckle.”

Jax didn’t move.

Sam shook the man’s hand instead. “Excuse him. His manners are only active between the hours of four and five p.m. every other week on Tuesdays.”

Heckle guffawed and gave her hand a proper shake.

“Trapped?” I asked between clenched teeth. I knew the full-blooded demons were running around in human form, but had no idea they’d been trapped like that. “Who trapped them?”

With a shrug, Heckle leaned across the bar. He was wearing a grin that Jax itched to wipe away with the back of his fist. “Think of it as a punishment. Let’s just say playtime got a little rowdy and they’re in a timeout.”

“I heard about this from the priest,” Sam said. “Something about the devil casting them from hell, right?”

Heckle nodded. “Pretty much.”

“And me? Why did you call me Tainted?”

“Because that’s what you are. They’re full-blooded demons walking around basically bound and gagged—you’re a human with a stain on his soul allowing him to be cursed with a demon. Tainted.”

I drained the rest of the beer and slammed the bottle to the counter. “Stain on my soul? And that means what, exactly?”

I could see it in the bartender’s eyes. He loved having to explain it all. “When someone—a human—does something horrible, it leaves a stain. If the act is so horrible that the soul can’t be redeemed in a single lifetime, it gets passed along to future generations.” He leaned on the bar, winking once at Sam before continuing. “It’s a blemish. A dirty spot on an otherwise pure thing.”

Sam took a sip of her own beer, trying not to make a face. Guess she wasn’t a fan of warm brew, either. “So you’re saying Jax has a demon because of a stain on his soul?”

“That’d be correct, little lady. When a demon takes up residence in the body of a stained soul, that’s what we call Tainted. Bad attitude. Short temper.” He snorted. “Horrible fashion sense. Somewhere along the line, someone in your family committed a crime. You’re the lucky bastard who gets to pay for it. It doesn’t have access to its supernatural abilities, but unlike the other demons who need fresh feeds to access their latent talents—strength, speed, et cetera—a demon in a Tainted simply has to take control.”

“Huh,” Sam said, taking a pull from her bottle. “That gives new meaning to the sins of the father thing.”

This was fascinating, and maybe under different circumstances I might have been interested in a history lesson, but I wasn’t here about myself. “I need some information.”

Heckle eyed me, suspicious, and sneaked a peek at Sam. “This ain’t a library, man.”