The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  Why head toward a dead end?

  Unless he had an agenda…or planned to fly away.

  Her mind quickly riffled through the known classifications of demons, sorting out those who had the gift of flight. When she reached the roof, she was ready to rock. She threw the door open and bounded out to avoid an ambush, rending the slit in her dress from knee to waist in the process. Her focused search for yellow mitigated any regret.

  Beautiful things in her life got broken; she was resigned to that now.

  She was midair when she caught sight of her quarry running across the roof. Drawing her arm back, she launched the metal pole like a javelin, jagged end first. Air whistled around the projectile before it struck its target. The vampyre stumbled from the blow and fell to his knees, cursing.

  Eve landed in a crouch, wincing at the pain of impact to her bare feet. Waiting with fists to the ground and spear at the ready, she left the next move up to the demon.

  With two feet of pole protruding from both the front and back of his torso, the vamp ran both hands through his blond hair and glanced down to inspect the damage.

  “I’d chide you for missing my heart, luv,” he said with a clipped British accent. “But I heard you have shoddy aim.”

  That stung. So she’d been aiming for his shoulder…. That she couldn’t throw worth a damn wasn’t the point. She had gone out of her way not to kill him. It was that gut-instinct thing again.

  She sized him up. He was tall, lean, and golden. She couldn’t imagine a person looking less like Elvis than this guy, yet the yellow sequined jumpsuit looked strangely good on him. He was checking her out, too, and the calculation in his eyes was unmistakable. Gripping the pole with both fists, he began to pull, hand over hand, divesting himself of the impalement in unhurried increments.

  If this guy had stayed put or exited through the crowded casino to the busy Las Vegas Strip, she would have had her hands tied by the crowd around them. Instead, he’d led her to a perfect place to kill him. Of course he’d thought that result would be reversed, and maybe he was right. Maybe she’d blown her chance to vanquish him. But she knew something was off. She wasn’t going to take him out before discovering what it was.

  “That was too easy.” She broke the spear over her knee, creating two weapons with splintered ends.

  Nothing came easy to Marks, especially kills.

  A slow smile curved his mouth. He brandished the pole with deadly elegance. “Let’s make it harder then, pet.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The vampyre lunged to his feet in a rush of fleshy, featherless wings and blood spatter. Eve feinted to the side, then spun around, using her canted balance to put weight behind her thrust. She shoved half the spear into his lower back. The momentum of her pivot crashed her into him and they both went down, the microphone stand clattering against the rooftop before rolling out of reach. She twisted away, narrowly missing a kick to the shoulder.

  Scrambling to her feet, she asked, “What are you after?

  The vamp regained a kneeling position and reached around to his back, laughing. “Who says I’m after anything?”

  “I was giving you credit for being caught so quickly, but maybe you’re just stupid.”

  He pulled the stick out of his flesh and brought it around. As he pushed to his feet, smoke rose from the sizzling blood coating the wood. “Sammael was spot-on about you.”

  Right about what? Eve adjusted her grip on her remaining half of the spear and crossed the fingers of her other hand. She also sucked in swordsmanship, but give her a gun and she could cause some serious damage. Unfortunately for her, guns weren’t much help with most classes of Infernals. “Of course Satan was right. Why do you think he’s the boss? He’s smarter than the rest of you.”

  The vamp growled, then spooked her with a mock lunge. “You won’t be so chipper when I hand you over to him. Lilith taunts him because you don’t wear the bloody necklace he gave you. He acts as if it doesn’t matter, but I know it does.”

  “It didn’t fit the neckline of my dress,” she managed past a tight throat. The damn necklace. She’d known it would come back to bite her. Satan hadn’t given her protection against his own minions for nothing. At some point, he expected the “gift” would benefit him in some way, and Eve doubted she’d come out ahead when it did. What creeped her out most, though, was the realization of how closely he must be watching her to notice that she rarely wore the piece around her neck. “He knows better than to take it personally.”

  “You never wear it,” the vamp insisted. His stance was wide, his hands flexing. “He says you don’t need it. I say you need a firmer hand.”

  Circling the vamp, she forced him to rotate to continue facing her head-on. “He sent you after me to prove his point, right?”

  After all, Satan didn’t care which of them survived this encounter; either outcome would entertain him. “And you’re dumb enough to go for it,” she goaded. “Why? I’m betting on Lilith. She’s got you pussy-whipped. She has a plan to irritate Satan, and you’re the collateral damage.”

  The vamp glared and licked the tip of a fang. “You’ll be the one sporting scars, luv.”

  He was probably right, but she wasn’t going to think about that now. “Really? I think Satan is using me to get rid of you. You’re not worth his time, so he’s betting on me.”

  “This is Vegas.” He assumed a classic Elvis pose. “A city built on playing the odds. Of course, there are ways to even them up a bit.”

  She jumped back from a wild swing of his fist. His goal had been to knock her off her game and it had worked, but she didn’t let it show. Sometimes, like now, a Mark’s best weapon was their bravado. “I take it you’re not talking about counting cards.”

  “Location, location, location.” He tried to kick her, but she blocked him with a downward chop of her forearm. “And making sure every one of your Mark mates from Mesquite to Baker was…indisposed, increasing the odds that you’d be the one sent after me.”

  Fists clenching, Eve bit back a curse. Once again, other Marks had been placed in the line of fire because of her. She was gaining a reputation for making life harder for others. That perception was compounded by the mistaken belief that having Cain as a mentor made her life easier. Pretty soon she would have a similar number of enemies on both sides.

  She exhaled and steeled her nerves. The vamp had deliberately done something heinous to get on the short list to be vanquished. She wasn’t going to ask how he’d pissed off the seraphim. What mattered was that he’d deliberately crossed the line for the sole purpose of getting to her. Someone, somewhere had suffered because of her. Maybe multiple people.

  The thought made her homicidal.

  Eve wrapped one arm loosely around her waist, leaving the hand holding the spear hanging at her side. The façade of vulnerability was calculated. When the vamp sidled closer, she lashed out.

  Striking him in the temple with one fist, she followed with a kick to his shin. When he leaped toward her, she met him halfway, their bodies colliding with teeth-rattling violence. His greater weight shoved her back. An inch away from hitting the roof in a pained sprawl, his wings burst free.

  Spinning in the air like a speeding bullet, they left the safety of the roof in a flurry of wings and sequined cape. The Mondego’s lights and neon signage swirled in a kaleidoscope around them. Eve wrapped her leg around his, calf to calf, ankle to ankle. Hanging on for her life.

  The moment she locked on to him, all traces of amusement faded from his face. Eve wished she could find the situation funny. It really should be. Just a few months ago, the thought of flying over Las Vegas with a blond, vampyric Elvis in a yellow jumpsuit would have been a teenage acid trip come back to haunt her. That she found it so “normal” now sparked a level of frustration and fury she’d thought was long gone. She was pissed enough to almost forget she was terrified of heights.

  Almost. Not quite.

  The vamp hissed. He bared pointed fangs, his irises red and
laser bright. His hand fisted in her hair and yanked her head back, exposing her neck.

  Damned if she’d be the in-flight meal.

  Rubbing her leg up and down the length of his like a lover, Eve shimmied his pant leg up and worked his sock down. The moment her anklet met his bare skin, his wings and fangs retracted instantaneously.

  They dropped like a stone.

  The vamp screamed and clutched her tighter, as if she could save him from the inevitable crash.

  Their downward spiral increased in speed with every rotation. Blood rushed through her ears, nearly obliterating the sound of his frantically flapping cape.

  “There’s more than one way to wear a necklace,” she yelled, hoping her timing wasn’t skewed by her dizziness.

  A parked Mondego service truck rushed up to meet them. She jerked hard to the left, positioning the Infernal beneath her. They hit the roof of the cab with enough force to crush it and burst all four tires. The pain of the collision was softened by the vampyre, whose bones shattered audibly. His inhuman scream sprayed a fine mist of blood into her face.

  Eve briefly registered the agony of sharply angled metal digging into her thigh. She lifted her head, wincing at the feel of the semigelatinous body beneath her. The vamp gurgled as she shifted. He’d heal in time, but she wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “When you get back to Hell,” she wheezed, “tell Satan if he wants his gift returned, he’ll have to come get it himself.”

  With the last of her strength, she angled the stub of the spear and pushed it through his chest cavity, finding his heart and finishing the job. He burst into ash.

  Broken, Eve closed her eyes and sank into oblivious darkness.

  CHAPTER 5

  “I will not mention the destruction of yet another vehicle,” Gadara said while pacing in front of the windows of her Mondego suite. The view behind him was of the Eiffel Tower and a thriving Las Vegas strip.

  “You just did,” Eve pointed out wryly, holding a bag of ice over a bruise on her thigh. The chill felt good, as did the dampness of her recently washed hair. The mark was mending her injuries—which included a myriad of cuts and bruises as well as a broken rib, collapsed lung, and fractured leg—at an astonishing rate. The healing process caused her temperature to run high—almost as high as the level of testosterone in the room. Alec and Reed glowered at each other from opposite sides of the expansive space. One stood with arms crossed and legs wide; the other leaned into the wall with dangerous casualness.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Reed snapped at her.

  “You have to ask?” she retorted. “You’re the one who gave me the assignment.”

  “To vanquish him. Not skydive with him!”

  Her hand went to Satan’s necklace, now hanging around her neck. “He wanted this. I got the impression Satan sent him after it just to teach the dumbass a lesson.”

  “Sammael clearly has a death wish,” Alec said in a moderated tone at odds with the look of mayhem in his dark eyes. “Damned if I’ll let him play his games with your life.”

  She looked at Gadara. “How are the other Marks in the area?”

  The archangel shot a meaningful glance at Reed. “Abel is about to check on them and their handlers.”

  He’s punishing me, Reed complained. It’s going to take all night. Following up on the handlers is his job, not mine.

  I’m glad you’re the one doing it, though, she offered. You give a shit.

  Alec straightened from his position at the wall. “Time for you two to leave. Eve needs to rest so she can heal.”

  “Then you better get out of here, too,” Reed shot back.

  “She needs someone to make sure she takes it easy.” Alec glanced at her. “Since she’s my girl, I’ll be the one to do it.”

  Reed’s lip curled scornfully before he shifted away.

  “Take the next two days off,” Gadara said, heading toward the door of her suite on foot. “I need you in prime shape.”

  She returned his parting wave.

  When the door clicked shut, Alec closed the distance between them and sat on the coffee table in front of her. “I need you alive.”

  “If Satan really wanted me dead, he would have sent someone more substantial after me. Especially knowing I have this damn necklace. By the way, I hate this thing. It feels like a bomb around my neck.”

  Tick tock, tick tock. The lovely gold piece had definitely come with conditions she wasn’t fully aware of yet—like using her to purge his ranks of stupid demons.

  “It’s a godsend,” he argued.

  “From Satan?”

  “Jehovah works in mysterious ways. Besides, you need all the help you can get. You attract disasters, Angel.”

  “Including you.”

  His mouth curved in a sexy smile. “Especially me.”

  “I’d like to meet the Mark who was in the Elvis impersonator competition.”

  “Why?”

  “You have to ask? A Mark who spends his off-duty time playing Elvis? I’d love to know what he does in his on-duty time.”

  “He entertains.”

  Her brows rose. “His job is to entertain?”

  “We all have our talents.”

  Eve’s earlier suspicion grew. “Are you saying—?”

  “That we can talk about it after you’ve gotten some sleep?” he interjected. “Absolutely.”

  As if on cue, a wave of exhaustion swept over her. She managed to yawn and glare at the same time.

  Standing, Alec scooped her up gingerly from the couch and carried her to the bedroom. “Time to crash and heal.”

  “Sounds good to me,” she mumbled.

  He tucked her in and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  “You better be.” He hadn’t been ten years ago.

  “Damn straight. You’re stuck with me now. Someone’s got to keep that tight little ass of yours out of trouble.”

  Eve would have argued that he was the reason she’d been marked to begin with, but she fell asleep.

  Copyright 2010 by S. J. Day

  Artwork copyright 2010 by Gordon Crabb

  Acquired and edited for Tor.com by Melissa Ann Singer.

  Books by S.J. Day

  THE MARKED SERIES

  Eve of Darkness

  Eve of Destruction

  Eve of Chaos

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  April

  The eerie thing about Paige Adolpha wasn’t just that she turned up right when I was reading about her in the paper. It wasn’t her fame as the star witness in the big local werewolf trial. What brought on the gooseflesh, first time I saw her, was that she was the spitting image of her murdered sister. Identical twins, you know?

  I was at the Britannia branch of the public library, absorbing what passed for Vancouver news and wishing the local papers would come up to the standards of the Edmonton Journal—even the Globe & Mail—when one of the regulars caught sight of her.

  “It’s that lady from page three,” he stage-whispered.

  “Don’t stare,” I murmured, peeking despite myself.

  I flipped back to the two shots of Paige’s sister, Pamela. One showed them both, laughing together. The other was her corpse: long-limbed, blood-matted fur, all fang. Nobody was denying she’d been a lycanthrope.

  Richard Deenie, her killer, was a brash American with one of those awful trophy necklaces of monster teeth. Fifteen years ago, he was bare
ly getting by selling camping equipment. When humanity discovered monsterkind in 2002, he’d reinvented himself as a sleazoid Buffy type. Him and plenty of others. U.S. werewolves were getting thin on the ground, so he’d stalked Pamela to British Columbia and shot her with a silver bullet.

  “Ya already read that page.” The old-timer was fidgeting; I’d beaten him to the last copy of the Sun.

  I swapped him for the Province. It had the same trial coverage, written at an even more dumbed-down level. Deenie, a born media whore, got arrested at a press conference he’d called especially so he could crow about saving us wussy Canadians from a lycanthrope menace.

  I hoped he was surprised when the Crown found a few cops willing to arrest him before he slithered back over the border. He was claiming self-defence. Paige insisted her sister had never bitten, much less killed, anyone.

  Here she was in the flesh, staring at the glassed-in art installation that separated the library’s reading room from the chaos of the kids’ section. She had a baby papoosed on her chest. She looked about nine, underfed, bruised by fatigue.

  Before I could look away, she was crossing the reading room. “You’re Jude?”

  I nodded. She was brandishing a pair of home improvement books and a library receipt.

  “The info woman says you’re a general contractor.”

  I shot Lela—who’s dating my ex and disapproves of my staying single—a dirty look.

  “Shhh!” said the old-timer.

  Steer clear, I thought. But…“Come on, I’m done here.”

  I do go for elfin blondes. Lela knows my type. And I was getting an answering vibe—baby or not, Paige looked available and, potentially, into me. But I wasn’t looking to be anyone’s stepmom. She’s vulnerable, I reminded myself. The pressure of a trial, plus grief…her sister’s been dead, what? Four months?

  I set out on a path that winds between Britannia’s low, unmistakably institutional buildings. The community center is big and battered looking; almost an architectural blight, and yet I love it. It’s the backbone of my neighbourhood. The library’s attached to a high school, and the complex includes a pool and ice rink, tennis courts, youth outreach and senior’s center.