Sunset to Sunrise (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #7.5)(25)

The girl ran, and I reached to stop her. Despite his attempt to sell her on the streets, the pimp flung himself between her and me. She pulled free and took off down the street, her screams echoing all around us.

He’d waited too late to show humanity. His bravado came too late to pretend he was something he was not. I wasn’t fooled for a moment by my victim’s protective action. He was a dirt bag, and he would die like one.

I bit him again, opening up an artery in a scarlet gush. The acrid aroma of his terror tickled me in unseen places. His fear was heady, a palpable entity that I drank down along with his blood. My entire body thrummed with the potency of his terror. There was nothing else quite like it. It lifted me up to a place I never wanted to come down from, a place where emotion ceased to exist. Where nothing existed but my victim and me.

Too soon it was over. I stood over his fallen body, watching the last spurts of blood paint the sidewalk a dark, murky red. Blood stained my hands. My face and clothing were spattered with it.

I turned to find one lone person watching me from a nearby bus shelter. An old man, with grocery bags in hand, stared at me with an expression so carefully neutral I had to be impressed. Especially since he stunk of panic.

There was most definitely a moment where I considered going for him next. I even took a step toward him. Then he spoke to me, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Thank you,” he stammered, pointing with a grocery bag-laden hand at the pimp on the ground. “That bastard has been selling girls around here as young as my granddaughter. Lord knows the law won’t deal with him properly. Somebody had to. Good on you.”

What the f*ck? I backed away, unable to tear my eyes from this man who so boldly thanked me for an act of violence and evil. It didn’t make any sense how someone could look upon me in my element and find something good in my maniacal actions. It made sense that Alexa hunted in these parts. The place was so dark and so filled with foul people that a monster like me appeared to be good.

There was no stopping the violent surge of anger and hatred that came upon me. By the time I reached my Camaro, I had thrown a mailbox through the window of an abandoned building and punched out two guys fighting outside a massage parlor. I revved the engine a few times before peeling away. Turning the music up, I opened the window and let the evening breeze cool me.

My phone rang. It was Jez. I ignored it. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to her. She didn’t call back or leave a message so it couldn’t have been that important.

For a long time I just drove. Eventually I would have to retire to either my home or The Wicked Kiss. Until then, I would drive. I couldn’t count the many nights I had driven aimlessly around the city, waiting for the dawn’s first rays to peek over the horizon. It was all I could do to keep myself occupied these days. On nights like this, I wondered if it wouldn’t have been best for me to remain in the FPA lockup.

Chapter Seven

I stared at the list of addresses and adjusted the fedora perched on my head. Every building on Shya’s list was either old, elaborate or both. It seemed a tad presumptuous to me, but hey, it’s not like he asked my opinion.

“This is it?” I asked the demon at my side.

Brook was one of Shya’s demons. He wasn’t high in rank, but he was no less deadly than any other. Tall, dark haired with eyes as black as sin, Brook carried himself with a constant air of menace.

We stood outside the first address on the list. It was a beautiful church, massive and made up primarily of red brick. Silver steeples topped with crosses graced the rooftop.

“Yeah, that’s it. For now.” Brook leaned against my car, arms crossed. “I doubt we’ll find anything, but since we’re here, we might as well humor Shya.”

I frowned, biting my tongue so I wouldn’t tell him to get the f*ck off my car. It wasn’t often that I worked with him. If I wasn’t with Jez and Alexa, I preferred to go it alone. At least Brook seemed to share my intent to appease Shya by going through the motions.

“Don’t scratch my car,” I warned before circling around the church to the back. Getting inside wasn’t hard. I’d been picking locks and frying security equipment as long as humans had been using them.

The church was just as impressive inside. Rows of wooden pews lined up in four separate sections. I walked between them, pausing here and there to scan the walls and ceiling.

I didn’t really know what I was looking for. Shya had given me instruction to seek any item that could be the scroll he sought or even a hiding place for it. He was insistent that if I found it, I would know it immediately. The thing must have a hell of a mojo.

Making my way to the altar, I picked up random objects and put them back down. Bibles, candles, statues. All of it was pretty run of the mill church stuff. Truth be told, I was hoping like hell I wouldn’t find a damn thing.

After walking the building once more, I slipped out the way I’d come in, leaving the place otherwise undisturbed. Brook was right where I’d left him, looking both bored and vicious.

“Nothing?” He said, almost more of a comment than a question. “Figures. Shya’s the most clever * I know, but I don’t think he’s thinking this one through.”

I agreed but wasn’t stupid enough to say so. One didn’t say more in front of demons than absolutely necessary. They could twist the most harmless of comments into something deadly that could later be used as a weapon.