Where The Heart Lives
Page 6
“Boo,” I said to the possessed woman, and felt sort of bad when she flinched from me, like I’d hit her.
Silent, and with agonizing stiffness, she reached sideways into the passenger seat and dragged a red plastic bowling bag across her stomach. Her breathing roughened again, and sweat dripped off the ends of her thin hair.
“Take it,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
Licking a bad case of herpes sounded more appealing than taking a gift from a demon. Safer, too.
I did not move. “Why are you here?”
“Come on, it’s fragile.” Her demonic aura twitched and fluttered, tendrils of shadow flirting with escape. “Please. I was told to come.”
“Who told you?”
She flashed me a hard, frightened look. “A voice in a dream. I was ordered to give you something that belongs to my host.”
I frowned. A voice in a dream? Really?
Unfortunately, it sounded too strange to be a lie. And that demon was genuinely terrified.
I reached for the bowling bag. I wasn’t worried about its being a bomb. I’d survive a nuclear blast—or bullets, knives, fire. Sending me to the bottom of the ocean wouldn’t kill me, either. Not while the sun shone, somewhere above me.
The possessed woman snatched back her hand before I had a full grip on the oversized handle, and I almost dropped it—partially because it was unexpectedly heavy. The shape as it bumped my leg felt round and hard.
“This better not be a human head,” I muttered.
She shuddered. “Close.”
I flashed her a hard look and unzipped the bowling bag.
No hair or bone inside. No blood. The afternoon light gleamed off a round, smooth, surface—clear as glass. I reached inside, bracing myself as the armor encasing much of my right hand and forearm began tingling again, like pins and needles.
Nothing happened, though. The armor quieted. I slid my hand under the cool, hard object—and lifted it from the bowling bag.
I stared, for a moment unsure what I was looking at. I saw depressions for eyes, a hard jaw and rows of teeth . . . but it was all wrong, and eerie.
Yes, there was a head in the bowling bag. A skull.
But it was carved from crystal. And it did not look human.
“Groovy,” I said. “But what the hell?”
The demon tore her gaze away, trembling. Moments later, I also started quivering—unable to help myself as a tiny tsunami rolled over every inch of my skin. Zee stretched and rippled, as did the rest of the boys, all of them tugging, pulling, struggling toward the crystal skull in my hand.
The truck’s engine roared. I jumped back as the vehicle jolted forward, spitting dust in my face. The driver’s side door was still open, swinging wildly, but the possessed woman had pulled her leg inside and was twisting at the steering wheel, her aura flaring wild and dark. I dropped the skull inside the bag, and ran after her.
Too slow, too late. The front bumper hit my knee as she accelerated past, but the boys deflected the impact. I tried to grab the door, but all I caught was air—and a glimpse of her determined, terrified expression.
I stopped running and watched the truck tear down the driveway in a choking cloud of dust. Bewildered, feeling stupid. Would that possessed woman have been able to pull off the same escape a year ago? Was I that sloppy?
Or am I getting too used to letting demons go?
I hated both possibilities. Might as well stick one foot in the grave. I was losing my edge.
That, or the edge had shifted sideways. Demonic possession didn’t mean the same thing anymore. It didn’t feel like the same threat I’d always thought it to be—not now, not after being exposed to far more immediate, and terrible, dangers.
I had lived my life believing that I was supposed to kill demons—all demons.
But the truth was worse.
I was the very thing that needed to be feared most. My body, a prison for five of the most dangerous demons ever to exist.
Reaper Kings. Devourers of worlds.
And I was their Queen.
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To read more of THE MORTAL BONE, and to learn about the Hunter Kiss series, please visit my website at www.marjoriemliu.com.