Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Thank you for Reading!
Roaring Blood
By Ambrose Ibsen
Copyright © 2016 by Ambrose Ibsen
All rights reserved.
This one's for Kentaro, Hisako, Inazawa and Mukai.
And maybe it's for Seiji, too.
ONE
I took a deep breath.
This was it, the moment of truth. If I fucked things up here, then it was all over. There was simply too much on the line for that. I needed to deliver, to bring my A-game. Still, my hands were shaking a little.
A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead and into my eyes. Gritting my teeth, I mustered all of my focus. “Joe... this is it, man.”
Time seemed to stop for a moment as the ICEE machine whirred to life and a stream of red slurry poured neatly into my cup.
Joe yawned. “A little dramatic, no?” He fanned himself with one of the magazines on the nearest rack, pacing behind me. His pompadour had fallen loose, his hair slick with sweat. “It's just a drink, dude. You're not defusing a bomb.”
“No!” I replied, shooting him a sharp glance in my periphery. “This is my patented 'no-spill' technique. See, you put the lid on first and watch it real close to make sure you fill it to the brim. If you time it just right, it won't spill over and you'll fill the cup to one-hundred percent capacity. You get your money's worth when there's no empty space in the dome lid. To do it any other way is un-American.” I smirked as my cup was filled to the bursting point and then pulled it away, burying a red straw inside. “You're the one who's never even tried an ICEE before. I'm a little embarrassed to know you, if we're being honest.”
Yanking a cup from the dispenser, Joe began to haphazardly fill it with blueberry-flavored drink. Bastard didn't even bother snapping on the dome lid first. “It's too hot for your bullshit today, Lucy,” he said with a sigh. He straightened his leather jacket a little, probably wishing he'd left it at home.
It wasn't merely a hot day; we were looking at near-record-breaking temperatures in Detroit. Though the sun had gone down the heat lingered on, radiating off of the asphalt as though it were molten underneath. Joe and I had met up a few hours ago, intending to hit up a house party one of my friends was throwing, and after filling up on fast food I'd demanded we stop at the convenience store for a quick ICEE. The air conditioning in the place felt great.
And, you know, the chick working the counter wasn't too hard on the eyes, either.
While Joe made a mess of his blue ICEE I turned and shot her a little smile. She was leaning over the counter disinterestedly, head propped up on her palm. She didn't seem to notice me. Too deep in her thoughts, I figured.
“Hey,” I said, tapping Joe's shoulder. “Ten bucks I can score her number.” Then, turning, I caught a glimpse of Joe's ICEE.
He was trying to force a sticky lid over the top of the cup, which burgeoned with half-melted blue frost. The stuff ran down his wrists as he pushed on the lid with a grunt. “There,” he said. “Not half bad, eh?”
Tearing a handful of napkins out of the nearest dispenser, I shoved them into his hand. “That ICEE is an abortion, Joe. What the hell happened to technique, huh? I can't take you anywhere, you damned animal.”
Joe grinned, the bluish liquid dripping steadily from the seams of his cup. He licked up a little bit. “I can see why you like these. They're pretty good.”
Like a mother leading a disobedient kid, I took Joe by the arm and hauled him to the counter. I set down my ICEE and plucked my wallet out of my back pocket. “Watch this,” I told Joe, clearing my throat and facing the cashier with a winning grin. “Hey, there.”
One look at Joe's mess of a cup and the rings of blue liquid it was leaving behind on her counter was enough to contort her bored expression into something, let's say, more hostile.
“My, uh, friend here has never had an ICEE before,” I started, nudging Joe with my elbow. “It's like he's been living in a cave the past twenty years, you know? Doesn't even know the right technique.”
She looked at us in turn and then punched a couple of keys on the register. She tapped them hard, like she wanted to break them, and the corners of her ruby red lips sank into a frown. “That'll be four bucks.” Her hand paused over the drawer, her matching red fingernails rapping an impatient tune on the plastic case.
OK, she wasn't taking the bait.
Better to be more direct.
“So, what time do you get off?” I asked, handing her four crisp dollars.
Joe arched a brow as he picked up his sticky cup. “You serious, man?” he muttered under his breath. He was making his way to the door when the cashier finally replied.
Taking one look at the messy ICEE station, she gave her shoulders a little toss. “Dunno,” she said flatly. “Guess it depends on how long it takes me to clean up your boyfriend's messes.”
Ouch.
Chuckling nervously, I picked up my cup and nodded. “Heh, cool. Have a... uh, good night.”
Joe laughed all the way out the door.
Exiting the convenience store we were hit by a wave of pure heat. The smell of asphalt came in thick, and my skin tingled with the promise of sweat.
I'm going to be honest with you: I hate the summer. I'm much more of an autumn or spring guy. Turns out that housing a demon in my body didn't magically give me a tolerance to the heat. Go figure. I'm still a little sore about that. I mean, demons live in hellfire, don't they? Surely hellfire's a lot hotter than a summer in Detroit?
Joe took a noisy slurp from his cup. “Man, you're just an expert in all sorts of things these days, aren't you, Lucy?” He laughed to himself, wiping his lips and taking off his jacket. Throwing it over one shoulder, he went on. “You kill a few witches, a few werewolves, and suddenly you think you're an expert in mixology. And Casanova, to boot.”
I didn't have anything nice to say in reply, so I just took a long pull from my ICEE.
The past month or so had been pretty wild, and I guess I understood where Joe was coming from. After weathering two cases with the Veiled Order and making an ass-load of money, I was riding pretty high. I mean, I was living debt-free now, and hunting down supernatural baddies paid really damn well. There wasn't a twenty-something in Detroit making the kind of money I made for a single night's work. When you took into consideration the nature of said work, you could understand why it was sta
rting to go to my head.
I was practically a superhero.
It hadn't been a cake-walk, but we'd taken down the coven of Mater Agatha for my first assignment. From there we'd been assigned to a fresh case, tracking a pair of werewolf twins through the city. This second case had actually been a fair bit easier than the first. For starters, werewolves, though strong, aren't nearly as clever as witches. They're brutes, through and through, and their bag of tricks doesn't run nearly so deep. Hell, it was only my second case, but after my tussle with the Lycans I felt pretty secure in the knowledge that their entire race was boring and predictable. They'd put up a hell of a fight, but when it comes to raw power it's hard to top a demon.
The poor werewolves learned that the hard way.
For their pelts I won a payday that would have made most lottery-winners jealous and decided to spend it judiciously.
On a Corvette.
“Why didn't we drive?” I moaned, shuffling onto the sidewalk and leaving the bright glow of the convenience store behind. “I feel like I'm melting.”
“Damn, Lucy. For a demon you sure whine a lot. You were the one who wanted to walk, remember? Your buddy's place doesn't have any good parking, and you didn't want to go all Exorcist on someone for bumping into the 'Vette.”
“Ah, yeah.” This was a little shindig thrown by an old university buddy of mine, Ken. Ken was the only art history student I knew who'd scored a proper job upon leaving school. We'd graduated at the same time, and my grades had been a wee bit higher than his, but Ken's dad was friends with the director of the local museum and in the end that connection had won out. He'd landed a job and was now responsible for curating different exhibits. The two of us weren't best buds or anything like that; if anything, since school, we'd sort of become rivals. These days when the two of us talked, I always sensed an air of superiority in his tone. He'd gotten a job with his degree. I'd gotten a job collecting debts.
Heh. Ken could keep his shitty museum job for all I cared. Little did he know I'd moved on from my old line of work and become a frigging monster hunter. I'd brought Joe along with me because I wanted someone down to Earth there, someone to break up the banal hipsterish banter that haunted Ken's parties without fail.
Oh, and because I figured he might make a decent wing-man.
See, ever since joining up with the Veiled Order I'd been having something of a dry spell. It'd been a couple of months since I'd had a good time with a member of the fairer sex. So tonight, at this party, I was determined to change that. Work had kept me pretty busy lately, it was true, but the real issue was that I kept striking out. Disinterested convenience store girl was just the latest in a long line of pickup disasters.
You'd think that having a demon inside of you might tip the scales in your favor when picking up girls. This is Gadreel we're talking about, no less; one of the Grigori, who has a legendary affinity for human women. But, no. Even though the demon's powers allowed me to call down lightning from the heavens and spit acid, Gadreel wasn't helping me get laid.
“So, this buddy of yours is a douche, huh?” started Joe.
I was about to respond when something curious came into view just ahead.
We'd built some distance from the convenience store and were now walking down a quiet street. From somewhere far away a dog barked. A breeze whistled by, momentarily cooling the sweat on my skin and making the hairs on my arms stand up. Ever since Gadreel moved in, my intuition had been on fire. I could usually perceive a threat long before the first blow was struck, could point out dangers from a distance, and I'd learned better than to just discount these hunches.
Well, something told me, deep-down, that the guy crossing the street just ahead of us with a long, shambling stride was bad news.
I stopped in my tracks and watched the individual creep across the street. He was headed in the opposite direction, didn't even spare us a passing glance. It was only when he walked beneath a streetlight that I got a good look at him, and when I did I was faced with a conundrum.
I knew the guy.
Squinting in the darkness and taking a pensive sip of my ICEE, I found the figure to be an old high school teacher of mine. A Mr. Duncan... Or was it Mr. Dukakis? Eh, something like that. It was a “D” name, I was certain.
The fella didn't look so good. He was walking with an extremely noticeable limp, one of his feet turned at an unnatural angle so that it dragged behind him as he went. The ankle was probably busted. His clothes were extremely dirty, torn up and ragged, and his skin was pale. Every step caused him great pain, and he grunted, shuffling off to God knew where.
I balled my fist and turned to Joe, nodding at the guy. “You feel that?” I asked.
“Feel what?” Joe was apparently clueless, sipping at his drink. “He's just a homeless guy or something. Leave him be.”
I watched the figure wander off into the darkness. He disappeared around a corner but the sounds of his shuffling advance took a little while longer to dissipate. “He looks just like an old teacher of mine. Don't remember his name, but I could have sworn it was him,” I said. “Got a real bad vibe, for some reason.”
Mr. Dimitri, was it? Hell, I couldn't remember. If I thought about it real hard I could recall the way he'd once made me stay after class in third-period English for replacing all of the proper nouns in my textbook with the word “penis”. He'd always been a strict type, not at all friendly with the students. I was surprised to see him wandering the streets like a hobo, but I wasn't too torn up about it, either.
Joe shrugged. “Whatever, man. Let's keep walking. Don't want to be too late.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” We pressed on. Ken's house was only a half-mile or so from the convenience store, and a glance at the time told me we were going to be there with a few minutes to spare. We walked in silence, slurping contentedly at our drinks and only opening our mouths when uttering the obligatory curses at the heat. I'd worn a polo and shorts, something loose and casual, but wished I could just walk the streets naked. It was that damn hot out.
Ken lived in a nice apartment complex. The buildings only housed three units, one on each floor, and the complex featured ten such buildings in total, laid out in a neat row. Ken's was the second building, and his was the apartment on the first floor.
As we drew near I could hear music issuing from Ken's. Stretching and smoothing out my shirt, I hoped I didn't look too disheveled. I palmed away a fair bit of sweat on my brow and led Joe to the entrance of the building. “This is the place.”
Joe slowed down a little, his gaze falling low. The guy was nervous. He'd never really met my other friends, and wasn't sure he'd be “artsy” enough to fit in. His fears weren't completely unfounded; my usual crowd could be pretty stuck-up, and odds were fifty-fifty that they'd eat him alive. “You sure about this?” he asked, pausing at the door.
“Just be cool, Joe. They're a bunch of posers, but if I know one thing, it's that Ken's got good taste in booze. Plus, this place is going to be crawling with cute girls. Maybe we'll both get lucky tonight.” I grinned. “And if you don't, well, maybe I'll let you watch.”
Joe groaned. “I don't know why I hang out with you. You're the worst of the worst.”
“Easy for you to say, altar boy!” said I. “It's been too damn long since a girl and I have hit it off.” I was going to keep yapping, except that my thoughts were suddenly drawn back to that teacher of mine, who we'd seen limping down the street. Mr. Donovan? Ah, fuck it. There was no way I was going to recall his name.
But there was one thing I felt reasonably sure of.
Unless I was senile, that teacher had died some years ago. Gulping, I thought back to my high school years, seeming to remember that the guy had kicked the bucket when I was a Junior or Senior.
Nah, I thought. That can't be right. I must be misremembering. Banishing all thoughts of the teacher, I eased open the door and waved Joe inside. “Game on,” I declared.
TWO
&
nbsp; Before I even said hello to anyone I walked past the crowd of leering hipsters and poured a little vodka into what remained of my ICEE.
“Making yourself at home, Lucian?” came Ken's nasally voice from within the throng. He was sitting in a chair, his thin legs crossed and a sneer on his lips. “This guy-- doesn't even say hello before helping himself to the goods.” He laughed. “Welcome, Lucian. And... who's this?” He motioned to Joe, his mirth ebbing away momentarily.
Joe bobbed his head, his eyes darting nervously about the room before settling on the floor. “I'm, uh... Joe.”
Ken arched a brow but didn't have anything more to say on that matter. Instead, he rose from his seat, arms spread, and pat me on the shoulder condescendingly. “How've you been? Still, eh... roughing people up for money?”
Gnawing on my straw, I gave a quick nod. “Yup.”
What? It's not like I was going to tell this asshole the truth! And, technically, I was still pounding heads for cash. My targets just weren't normal people anymore.
Ken gave the smuggest, most WASP-like chuckle imaginable and then sized up Joe. “And Joe is...?”
“He works with me,” I replied. “A good guy.”
“Well,” replied Ken, motioning to the collection of bottles on the table. “Help yourself, Joe. A friend of Lucian's is a friend of mine.” His tone wasn't all that convincing. “There's craft beer in the fridge, fellas. Robbie's coming tonight, and he plans to bring Absinthe. Or so I've heard. Dominique has a veggie bake going in the oven that's going to be totes delish.”
I cringed. “Sounds great.” I looked past Ken to the mass of partiers hanging out in the dim living room, listening to If You're Feeling Sinister. Taking a gulp of my drink, the sting of vodka assailed my throat. As I left the kitchen and zeroed in on an empty chair in the next room, Joe followed.
“Why do you bother with the booze?” he asked. “Won't get you drunk.”
Joe was right. Ever since taking on Gadreel's heart, alcohol couldn't touch me. It wasn't the most welcome side-effect. I'd tried smoking pot as well since the transplant, and that hadn't had any effect either. “Old habit,” I replied. “Greases the gears, if you catch my drift. Everyone else is drinking, so I don't want to be a straight-edge stick in the mud.”
Roaring Blood (Demon-Hearted Book 2) Page 1
