“They call me Mara,” I said. “I am the last of my kind.”
“I’m Hugo.”
“I know.” I smiled sadly.
“Do you know what I am?” He asked, his fingers loosened as if he wanted to take his hand back. I did not let him.
“Yes.”
“Then you know what I can do.” Hugo spat, disgusted with himself.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Hugo,” I said, not unkindly. “You are young.”
“My first girlfriend—” He interrupted himself to swallow the lump in his throat. “She killed herself after we... You know.”
“Why?” I cocked my head to the side, mildly curious.
“She forced me. I wanted to take it slow. I wasn’t ready. I stopped her halfway through. I'd only put it in. Just a little bit. Then I stopped.” His voice gathered momentum. Manic as he was caught in his memories. “I hadn’t paid attention to someone like that before. She was crazy. Slumped. Like she had been drugged. I almost killed her.”
I patted his shoulder. Silent.
“I broke up with her. I couldn’t risk getting close to someone. I didn’t know what I was yet. She killed herself the week after I did it. She blamed me in the note.”
I could have spouted a human platitude about it not being his fault, but Hugo didn’t need to hear that. Maybe the girl would have committed suicide later in her life after some other event had triggered her. I didn’t know. I wasn't powerful enough to see the future.
“Did you know what you were?” I asked gently.
Hugo shook his head frantically. His eyes were wide with panic. “I didn’t. I swear.”
“You are half-human,” I said. It wasn’t a question. “Who sired you?”
“My Demon parent?” He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “My father.”
“His name?”
“Eadwald.” He whispered, clenching his fist. His body tensed as if he worried that speaking the name would summon to Demon.
“You’re safe here,” I assured him.
“Are you a Demon?”
“Yes.”
“You’re like me?” Hugo sounded hopeful.
I smiled but said nothing. I knew his father. I knew Eadwald by another title, but I knew him none the less.
Eadwald. Asmodeus's second son. Prince of Lust.
No wonder Hugo had problems.
“You choose to be celibate,” I noted. “Because of her.” He had not told me his first girlfriend’s name.
“And the others.”
“The first time I killed someone, I ripped into their mind and stole a bevy of information,” I told him. “I did it because someone told me to. Because I was afraid and alone. Tired and on the run. I wanted to be safe.”
“How does killing someone make you safe?” Hugo reached up to touch a loose tendril of my starlight smoke.
“I needed shelter. I needed protection. In exchange, I do things.” I said, without emotion. Describing my complicated relationship with Dermot Dirk in as few words as possible.
As soon as I thought about my last hours in Hell, the sky turned black. The dust kicked up. I turned to Hugo.
Horror made my chest swell as my nightmare grew wings, and the ground buckled.
“You must wake,” I demanded. My voice echoed through the empty market.
“What?” He called over the howling wind.
“They're here!” I shouted. “Go! Wake up! Leave!”
“Come with me!” He bellowed back, wrenching my arm, so my smoky form laid cocooned in his warmth.
The ground cracked. The fissure in the bedrock spread like a glowing vine.
Their magic was dark. Ancient. More powerful than anything I had ever felt.
The Bhakshi and the Shayati.
The creatures below the surface of Hell. The beings that had stolen my family and eaten their magic.
The shadowy form of the Shayati rose up, like a cloaked specter from the expanding chasm. I stepped backward, stumbling as if I had suddenly been made flesh.
A single bony finger pointed at me.
The Shayati were not Demons. They were a force. An idea that God had made flesh and given power. All they wanted was to feed.
Hugo tugged me backward, and our feet flew across the sand, skidding as plumes of dust exploded.
“Is that what killed Team C?” He called, shielding his mouth.
I shook my head. “That’s what killed my family.”
A hole opened in the sand, rapidly expanding until the circular edges looked like an hourglass. Before I could stop my feet, Hugo and I toppled over the edge.
We kept falling and falling, tangled in thick black vines like the ones I had seen on Hugo's lips as Remi had fought them back with magic.
“Where are we now?” Hugo asked in the darkness.
“This is your nightmare,” I informed him. The dream no longer felt like mine. I felt control pour back into my body, and I sagged with relief.
The lights flickered on, Hugo and I stood tangled in the rotten rope. The floor was covered in wax chalk.
Hugo straightened his shoulder. “This is where I was attacked.”
I shrugged a shoulder. My eyes focused on the bastardized version of a Cyclian rune and ancient Arabic meshed together. I should have known.
I sighed heavily and chuckled.
“What?” Hugo demanded. “Do you find this funny?”
I shook my head. Floating above the crime scene, I looked down on the entire circle and the scattered animal bones.
I wish. I wish. I wish. I wish.
“I know what did this,” I whispered. “It was a—”
Chapter 11
I woke up with my body wrapped around Hugo's unconscious form. I quickly wiped the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand. I had drooled all over the beautiful golden chest of an injured Cambion.
That wasn’t the most difficult part.
Hugo had seen my true form twice. He had seen my worst memory and my deepest fear. He had seen how I had run away instead of standing and fighting for my family.
If he were smart, he would put it together.
The only thing I was good at was running away. Being a coward.
Not that Hugo would ever put it together. Mara, the Drude, was a wholly different being from Frankie, the Hunter.
I felt a connection with the half-incubus.
Something deeper than Sin. Something threaded into the fabric of my being. Something that I wasn’t worthy of having.
I was temporary. My time with the Hunter’s had a countdown; now I had a solid clue about the creature that had attacked Hugo at the scene of the crime, I was one step closer to my lonely existence in the City. Piggybacking on the newly dead or horribly drunk. Stealing their moments and savoring the sensations their slowly decaying bodies could feel.
I liked being in Frankie's body too much. I had become too comfortable.
I hated my compliance in Dirk's scheme. Even though he had offered me early freedom with my contract, and I had jumped at the notion—I didn’t know what I would do if I were free.
The Bhakshi and the Shayati were gone. Dead. I was safe.
Could I ever go back to Hell? To my home?
Was it still my home, if my family was gone?
Hugo stirred; I pushed myself slowly into the chair at his bedside. Gooseflesh raised on my arms and legs, making me aware of how little clothing I wore. I leaned over and rummaged through one of Hugo's drawers, finding a shirt that smelt like cotton fabric softener, and Hugo’s spicy signature scent that wasn’t a cologne. It was part magic and all Hugo Sinclair.
Remi had gone in the night; his chair stood empty on the other side of the bed.