Dark Urban Rising Box Set

2. Demons Everywhere

2Demons EverywhereIn a well-repeated mantra, Tazia recalled the kill spots of the demons she pinpointed in the throng of early evening visitors to the piazza: brain, heart, stomach, or eyes. Always the eyes with the sneaky ones.

It was her usual practice. She had no plans to kill any today. She was just passing time, but it was good to be prepared.

From childhood, she’d studied demon breeds like museum exhibits cataloging their likes, dislikes, supernatural traits, even bathroom habits. With age, she’d gained real world experience. From battlefield to bedroom she’d learned how to make them writhe in agony as well as squirm in pleasure. She liked to have the upper hand.

The patio was crowded. Patrons shunted up to each other. Table tops touching. Scents of coffee, wine, and garlicky suppers assailed her nose in a delightful mess.

Her stomach growled.

Tazia sucked on her straw. A nice hit of tequila nestled at the bottom of the glass underneath the Coke. She’d yearned for a buzz ever since she’d started her escape from the cave, but it was proving elusive. Maybe they watered the s**t down in here? She sucked harder, but was only rewarded with a swimming sensation in her head that reminded her she hadn’t eaten for over twenty-four hours.

As she sucked, a new wave of specimens moved through her field of vision. A mixture of tourists and locals, both demon and human, they milled around the square largely oblivious of each other, totally unaware they were subject to her scrutiny. She examined each through squinted eyes and made an identification, before turning back and crossing her arms over her chest, her smile replaced with a scowl. Tick-tock, mister, tick-f*****g-tock.

Irritated, she bounced her foot against the leg of the table she sat at, jostling the one crammed into the space next to her. The metal table tops clinked together creating a steady but discordant clink! After a few moments, the man to her left shot her a pained glance over the top of his Raybans.

Tazia felt her color rise, stilled her leg, and turned her attention back to her drink. She sucked gently on her straw, attempting nonchalance. First rule of Spy Club, Taz? Not to f**k up Spy Club!

The man with the sunglasses smelled human. His large biceps were crammed into the arms of the business suit he wore, and his closely shaved head bore a tribal-inspired tattoo curved around one ear. He looked more MMA than JP Morgan, but the fancy monogram on his briefcase said different. He was multi-tasking: sipping a beer while talking loudly on his phone and thumbing through the local newspaper.

Tazia read the headline. It told of a human death on the west side of the city, still unsolved, perpetrator unknown. Cover already blown, she tutted loudly.

He glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

“Probably a mixed-breed did it,” she said and wrinkled her nose before allowing her eyes to spark amber. She was bored, not above a little teasing, and was hoping for some conversation.

He didn’t bite, just flashed her a brief smile and went back to his phone call.

In her experience, mixed-breeds were the hardest to pin down. Their incessant changes of allegiance led to bickering which fed the local media with a never-ending supply of stories. Usually minor squabbles, they invariably ended with the loss of a limb or two and just a colorful headline in the mid-pages (before the realty advertisements but after the TV schedules). Mixed-breeds knew their place—

Damn, where is this guy? She was awaiting the arrival of the café owner, the demon who had contracted an assassin to take out her father—for a significant p*****t, of course. He was probably a pure-breed. No respect for differences, they lorded it over everyone. Pure-breeds were the assholes of the demon world. Her father was a pure-breed. That said it all, really.

And now, her father was a dead asshole.

Tazia forced a smirk, but the glass she pushed around the table stuttered rather than slid over the little pool of condensation that had collected underneath it, picking up the slight tremble in her fingers. She didn’t want to think about her father.

Turin was a melting pot. Always a euro or two to be made. She’d taken the more bloody jobs to keep her father happy—More lucrative, my dear!—and it was for these contracts she’d become adept at assessing a demon quickly.

She knew, for instance, that the woman in the dark Chanel suit sitting to her left under the bright red canopy had a tad more evil about her than the average mixed-breed. It was in the way she sipped on her espresso and eyed the waitress rushing from table to table; and how she ground her teeth along the edges of her cup, sharpening each one against the place where the glaze had worn off.

Of course, she’d also come up against plenty of demons whose only purpose was to create soul-sucking depravity. To infect another so completely that wickedness would seep from the pores of the victim’s skin, creating a thick coating no amount of scrubbing would remove. They were the real nasties.

Demons like her father. Demons like her dead father.

Her stomach flipped. She grabbed her drink and vigorously swished the straw to mix up the remaining tequila before sucking it all up with a loud slurp. The tattooed man paused his phone call and glared at her. This time she flashed red eyes, and he looked away.

She looked back into the square. Where the f**k is he?

Right in front of her, a group of teenaged mixed-breeds blocked her view. They milled around aimlessly, heads bent over their phones. Several cameras flashed in her direction. Second rule of Spy Club—turn your auto-bloody-flash off! She’d been caught out by that one herself a few times in the past.

Tazia was used to the curiosity of others. A human-vampire mix was one thing, but she was something different entirely and, on the patio, her unique scent had already created quite a stir. Her disheveled appearance didn't help. It was made worse by the thin skin of blood and sweat covering her and even, she noted with a little regret, vomit in some places.

Climbing out of the cave had really done a number on her.

Now, stretched out in the evening shade, Tazia’s knuckles throbbed, her clothes stank, and her body ached. Her hands were swollen and battered, and the skin on her palms slashed open.

Forgetting the kids in the square, she drew a painful breath and played with a flap of skin that had been partly sliced from her palm by the rock face. She peeled it from her hand—a band of pink rubbery flesh—and flicked it to the pavement below her table.

Immediately, the dark-suited lady demon sniffed the air and turned her head toward her, teeth chattering slightly at the smell of flesh. Her eyes flashed a brief hungry red.

Grinning at the demon, Tazia pushed the flap of skin, now curled and speckled with dirt, further under the table with the toe of her boot, the metal toe cap tapping off the mosaic tiles. You want it, b***h? Get on your knees!

The demon looked away, her pinched cheeks turning as beet red as the canopy that sheltered her.

Giggling, Tazia shifted her seat away from the piazza and toward the narrow cafe building. All she could see inside were small pools of light cast on the wooden bar and stainless fixtures from the spotlight-studded ceiling. The sound of footsteps crisscrossing the tile floor drifted to her—

For fucksakes, where is this guy?

By rights, it should have been the gunman waiting to collect the money, but Tazia had left Soren Huxford to die in the cave alongside her father. Hadn’t she? Tazia’s skin prickled. Third rule of Spy Club: if intuition comes knocking, run!

She scanned the crowd looking for Soren’s tall blond form. If he hadn’t died in the cave collapse—perhaps shaken that off like so many other injuries in the past—he’d be gunning for her.

She searched again. Nothing. But the feeling spread up her arms like a junkie’s fiery itch.

Just then, one of the service staff approached her table and coughed softly to attract her attention. It was the same lanky teenaged boy who’d served her the drink. He kept several large steps away from her, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

She caught his eye, and for a moment, blinked soft amber eyes over her deep chestnut ones just for the hell of it. The veins in his arms were thick and ran close to the skin, marbling his flesh, blood running through them like a delicious Chianti. She licked her lips as the stink of his sweat rose.

Tazia stood to greet him, and asked in perfect English despite her native Italian, “Did you want to tell me something, kid?”

At her approach, the boy snapped the metal tray he was clutching up to his chest and held it like a shield, shoulders tense, and head and neck pulled back as far as they would go. He replied in broken English, “Si, signorina. The manager… he is here now. He is waiting… inside.”

He nodded toward the café where Tazia could make out the shape of a fat man in a dinner suit standing with arms crossed gazing out at her. He looked unhappy. Even from the depths of the building, she could make out the waves of scarlet and black that coursed from his body. The supernatural shine in his eyes flashed from red to a pure cornflower blue. The only attractive thing about him.

Tazia inclined her head slightly at the boy in thanks, then walked into the bar. All she had to do was pick up the cash then get out of town.

What could possibly go wrong?