Roaring Blood (Demon-Hearted Book 2) Read online

  I sat down next to a pair of guys I vaguely remembered from one of my art classes. Rick and Mike? Or was the black-haired one John and the one with the incomplete sleeve of tattoos Wyatt?

  In case you haven't been paying attention, I'm absolute shit at remembering names.

  They were deep in conversation, talking about the novels they were writing. There wasn't a person in this room except for Joe and I who didn't fancy themselves a future Man Booker Prize winner. They all had their novels and chapbooks, their pet projects that would never amount to anything. They adored talking about these works that would never come to fruition and describing the intense creative struggles they faced on the regular... while drinking coffee at Starbucks. Talk like that has always turned my stomach. Like, how hard is it to write a book, really? You just sit down and make shit up, right?

  I nodded as though I were politely listening, but my gaze was wandering all the while. Joe sat next to me, on the floor, legs crossed, keeping the straw to his lips in the hopes that no one would talk to him. He'd put his jacket back on and looked awfully small as he sank into its depths. A hell of a wing-man he was turning out to be.

  Ken's on-again, off-again girlfriend Stacy was laughing shrilly in the far corner, wearing a skin-tight black slip that left about as much to the imagination as Saran wrap. No, I thought. She's off limits. If I tried to put the moves on her, Ken would toss me out in a hurry. There was Dominique, the nature chick, with her baggy brown dress and a string of crystals around her neck. She was a lot of fun to talk to, but the smell of pot that followed her around was strong enough to make your eyes water. Sitting across from me was Delilah, a bookish chick I'd had a little thing with a few years back. She smiled as our eyes met and leaned in.

  “You're looking well, Lucian,” she said, her glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. She was looking me up and down, her pale cheeks flushing a little. “You been working out or something?” Delilah had always been somewhat sickly. Cute in the right light, sure, but a little too clingy for my tastes. Apparently she'd taken an interest in my monster-hunting bod, and was crushing on me not-so-subtly.

  I waggled my eyebrows. “You could say that.” I let my bicep pop a little while raising the ICEE to my lips, and then buried my heel in Joe's side to stifle his groan.

  “I've been working out, too,” chimed in one of the skinny guys to my left. I didn't know this guy's name, either, but his hair was wild, real long on top and teased out like he thought he was Morrissey in the 80's. “Joined a Crossfit gym last week,” continued the Morrissey-wannabe, taking a swig of some imported German beer. “I don't want to get, you know, swole, but ever since I started the gains have been incredible.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, standing up. “Time for a refresher.” I excused myself to the kitchen and Joe followed on my heels.

  “This is a party?” he muttered. “This sucks, Lucy.”

  I stood in the kitchen, looking down at the snacks on offer. There were Quinoa crisps, smoked sardines, stuffed Kalamata olives... and other stuff I didn't particularly want to eat. I popped an olive into my mouth and slumped against the wall. “Yeah, the turn-out's a little disappointing. But it's early yet. Where's the stereo at? I'll turn on some Bonobo and get the lights down.”

  Just then, Ken walked in with someone I didn't recognize. “Oh, Lucian, did you meet Kanta?”

  Kanta, the girl at his side, looked to be a hundred and ten pounds of pure Indian goddess. Her long, black hair was perfectly molded into a braid that framed the right shoulder of her salmon-colored blouse. Her eyes were a striking green, and her lips did that perfect pouty thing without her even trying. When she extended a hand to shake and introduced herself with an adorable Indian accent, I melted.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling demurely. “You're Lucian, yes?”

  “That's right,” I replied, shaking her hand enthusiastically. “And what's your story, Kanta? Where've you been all night?”

  “Kanta is an exchange student from New Delhi, and she's staying in this complex. Dominique introduced me to her. Studying... what was it?” asked Ken.

  “Theology,” replied Kanta.

  For an exchange student, her English was pretty damn good. There was an accent there, for sure, but it was just noticeable enough to be sexy.

  “Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Kanta,” I replied, nodding to the living room. “Why don't we have a seat and get to know one another.” Joe shifted uncomfortably behind me. “My buddy Joe here isn't much for parties. I don't suppose you know any nice girls I could set him up with?” My shit-eating grin intensified the more Joe's cheeks reddened. “Joe, grab a beer out of the fridge and take a load off. Kanta and I are going to have a little chat.”

  Joe remained stationed in the kitchen with Ken, awkwardly turning to the fridge. He pulled open the door and perused the rows of obscure beers on offer. He went for the only thing he recognized and thanked Ken, wrenching the cap off of a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

  I was already in the living room by that time, sitting apart from the rest of the group with Kanta centered in my sights. I wanted to get to know her a little better. If I played my cards right, I'd give her a real taste of the American life tonight.

  “So,” she said. “Tell me about yourself.” Her green eyes twinkled in the low lighting. Someone put on a Camera Obscura record; pleasant background noise as far as I was concerned.

  This was the moment that would make or break this thing. I had to sell myself, but couldn't lay it on too thick, lest she think me a poser like the rest. “Well,” I began, “I'm really into art. Got my Master's in Art History, in fact. I've been working in the city doing... community outreach work.”

  Come on, I wasn't fibbing. I know what you're thinking, but this wasn't a total lie. I did reach out into the community in my line of work... to punch supernatural villains in the mouth.

  I went on. “I'm into all sorts of things; music, theater, film, fitness. I like to start my day with a cup of Milkthorn tea, blended with coconut oil and Ayurvedic herbs. Feel like I can take on the world afterward.” I mean, a guy who drinks fancy tea every morning must be pretty sophisticated, no? I thought.

  I waited on tenterhooks, wondering if she'd call my bluff. If pressed, I wouldn't have been able to spell the word Ayurvedic.

  Kanta nodded enthusiastically.

  Damn, I'd really lucked out here. By now, most American chicks would have sniffed out my poseur bullshit. But she listened to me talk about myself with seeming glee. A half hour passed, and in all that time she seldom spoke, just wanting to know more about me. Unless I was mistaken, she seemed like she was genuinely interested. I wasn't really used to this feeling.

  “That's fascinating,” she said after a while, her hand on my knee. “You seem like a very interesting person, Lucian.”

  My cheeks burned a little for all of the blushing. “Well, you know, some people say that.”

  Kanta giggled. “As it happens,” she said, her green eyes flickering with something of mischievousness, “I live in this building, on the third floor. Maybe you should visit me sometime.” She bit her lower lip a little, her ivory teeth sinking into the rosy flesh and getting me all bothered. “Maybe...” Her voice trailed off a little. “Do you want to see my room?”

  “Now?” I asked, my breath temporarily betraying me. “S-sure,” I said, trying to play it cool. “Let's go up there and have a look around.”

  Oh shit, oh shit, I thought. This is it. She wants to seal the deal! I stood up, cutting through the living room with Kanta at my side, and shot Joe a devilish grin. “I'll be back,” I told him, edging my way towards the entrance.

  He'd been sandwiched between two guys arguing about Veganism and looked up at me with something like real terror in his eyes. “Save me,” he mouthed.

  I was already out the door, Kanta's hand locked in mine. Things were moving really fast, blindingly fast, but I sure as hell wasn't about to complain. So, what? For all I knew Kanta
had flown in just hours ago and decided she needed to sample the local fare. It was my patriotic duty to represent the country, to take her upstairs and welcome her to good ol' Detroit the proper way.

  My heart began to thrash, Gadreel apparently getting excited. This would be my first time having sex with the demon's heart lodged in my chest. Did my condition technically make this a three-way? Would Gadreel's prowess turn me into a literal sex god? These were the questions I most wanted answers to as we climbed the stairs and made our way to the third story. The door up there was already ajar, waiting for us. Kanta pushed it open and invited me inside.

  The interior of the place was bare, totally austere. There wasn't a thing to be seen in the joint, save for an old wooden chair in the living room. She'd probably only just arrived in the country, so the lack of furniture was understandable. “Do, uh... do you have a bed in here?” I asked as she closed the door behind her.

  She smiled, giving her braid a toss. “We don't need a bed.”

  Ooh, I thought, this chick is down for anything! I grinned. “I guess not.”

  “Why don't you have a seat?” she offered, motioning to the chair.

  “Don't mind if I do.” I walked over and dropped into the wooden seat, finding it a little uncomfortable. The lights were pretty low in here; with the blinds drawn and only a weak light coming in from over the kitchen sink, we were pretty well enveloped in shadow. She paced into the kitchen and rifled through one of the drawers before returning.

  “Close your eyes,” she said with a smile.

  I was only too willing to obey.

  With my eyes shut, I felt something soft and lacy brush against my cheek. This laciness trended south, to my arms, before it settled on my wrists. She was tying me to the chair, fastening a length of soft fabric around my wrists. Pretty kinky, I thought. When she'd done up both arms, she took a few steps back from the chair and appraised her work with a fiendish smile.

  She pulled a candle from her pocket and deftly lit a match, striking it against her heel. “We're all ready,” she said. “You can open your eyes.”

  I eyed the candle with curiosity. What's that for? Is she into wax play? Well... whatever. She can have her fun. When that's done, we'll do this thing demon-style...

  Next, Kanta took a string of chunky, wooden beads from her pocket. She held them out in front of her and took on a dire cast in the flickering candlelight. I heard the door to the apartment open, and someone entered into view behind her. He was a tall guy, with blondish hair and a respectable beard. Dressed in an olive green jacket, he looked kind of dirty, as though he lived out of a car.

  Strapped to his back was a sword.

  A sword whose hilt was a long, thick bone.

  “Whoa, that's an awesome sword,” I said. And I meant it. “But, uh... who're you?”

  They both looked at me, then to each other.

  That was when it occurred to me that this was apparently some big joke that they were both in on.

  Either that or we were about to have a threesome.

  Knowing my luck, my bet was on the former, though.

  “K-kanta? Do you know this guy?” I chanced.

  The dude with the sword on his back cracked a grin. “All set, yeah? I haven't watched you do one of these for quite a while.”

  I blanched. “I'm, uh... I'm not really into having voyeurs sit in on--” I started, before Kanta cut me off sharply.

  “Shut your mouth,” she spat. What struck me more than the ferocity of her reply, though, was the fact that the cute Indian accent was completely gone from her voice. She'd dropped it all at once, a practiced ruse. “What?” she continued, laughing at my bewilderment. “Did you think you were about to get lucky, demon? I don't usually go for that generic seductress approach, but with you it was just too easy.”

  “Well, yeah,” I replied before fully thinking things through. Then, furrowing my brow, I leaned forward in the chair. “But... what's all this demon talk about?”

  You probably saw this coming a long way before I did, but it was pretty clear at this point that I'd walked headlong into a trap. What's that? You think it was an obvious trap? Easy for you to say. You're sitting down reading this after the fact, guided by reason, rather than libido. So I fell for it. Sue me. Anyhow, I figured I didn't have anything to lose by trying to lie. This chick had somehow figured out I was a demon, and that wasn't really something I wanted to spread around, you know?

  “I could sense the diabolical aura on you from a mile away,” she said, thumbing the beads and pacing before me. “Good thing you're a stupid demon, led by human impulse. If you hadn't been so blindsided by lust I might've had trouble luring you here.”

  Truthfully, I felt hurt. Up until a few minutes ago, I'd thought things were going well. I sighed. “Where did we go wrong? I thought we had a connection...”

  She arched a raven brow. “A connection? With a douche like you?” She chuckled incredulously. “I think not, demon scum. Oh, and by the way? Milkthorn tea isn't even a thing.”

  Damn it. She'd seen through my bullshit.

  Clearing her throat, Kanta raised the wooden beads over her head. “We will now begin the rites of exorcism.”

  My eyes shot open wide and my arms quaked against the wooden chair. “Wait, what? You're going to do a-an exorcism?”

  The tall guy just kept on grinning. The longer he stood there, awaiting the spectacle, the more I wanted to knock every one of his teeth out. “Prepare yourself, demon.”

  Oh, shit. I leaned against the back of the chair and pleaded feebly. My murmured pleas were drowned out by Kanta's low chanting. She was speaking in a foreign tongue, Hindi, probably, and the sound of the beads clacking against one another filled the air like so many distant drums. Now you've done it. You're so fucked, I thought.

  THREE

  I felt like a prisoner being publicly executed. The two of them watched me writhe and yelp as the ritual wore on with satisfaction in their eyes. I mean, these people hardly knew me, but were content to subject me to the torture that was exorcism.

  Bear in mind, no one had ever really primed me on what I could expect from an exorcism. In the movies it's all a very dramatic affair. Lots of pain and yelling and speaking in tongues. Turns out the real thing isn't so different. When she started chanting, Gadreel went into full-blown panic mode, my heart thumping in my chest, faster and faster, till I felt dizzy. My skin grew hot and poured fresh sweat, and not simply because of the summer heat. Her chants rose in volume, went higher and higher, and though I struggled against my restraints, they proved surprisingly powerful. Probably charmed in some way. I wanted to stand up, to run away or clobber her till she shut that mouth of hers, but I didn't have the strength. Every word carved away a little bit of my power till I was left with nothing.

  My stomach tossed and turned, my guts feeling like they might shoot out of my throat at any moment and shower the empty apartment in red, vodka-infused ICEE. She moved the beads in hypnotic semi-circles, and in my blurred vision they almost appeared to glow in the candlelight. My soul, my essence was being actively drawn out of my body. It was the weirdest, most painful thing I'd ever felt. Getting slugged by werewolves or shot by blessed bullets couldn't compete with the kind of pain she was dealing. Even getting killed by witches hadn't caused this sort of pain. Every atom in my body was being attacked at once, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was a sitting duck, completely incapacitated.

  Finally, Kanta finished, draping the beads around her neck and uttering one final, forceful chant. Her voice scarcely reached my ears; I was too out of it to hear her. Barely alive, really.

  “Return to the hellfire,” she commanded.

  When she was finished, I was out of breath, unable to speak. Apparently, though, Gadreel had something to say. He wasn't going anywhere, and told her so with a smirk. “That...” I panted, “was quite... the ritual...” Gulping in more air, the demon continued speaking through me. “It's a go
od thing that my soul is permanently leashed to this body. Otherwise that might've actually worked.” Deep, disembodied laughter filled the room.

  She'd tortured Gadreel something fierce, but she couldn't get rid of him. An exorcism, apparently, wasn't enough. Good to know.

  Kanta and her sword-wielding buddy didn't seem to believe, and took a few steps back. She clutched the beads around her neck and uttered a curse in some language I couldn't understand. “No, there's no way. You're a demon... I... I've never met a demon with resistance to exorcism. That's impossible!”

  Gadreel had had enough of fun and games. His control over my body increased, allowing him to stand me up. Jerking from side to side, I raised the chair behind me and then allowed both of my shoulders to dislocate with a sickening pop. The chair sailed down before me in the next instant, and once the joints were sound again, I slammed the thing against the floor, where it broke apart into jagged pieces.

  “Well, a shame we had to meet under these circumstances,” uttered Gadreel, using my eyes to appraise the two of them with an icy glare. “Perhaps you should have stuck to the original script. You'd have had a lot more fun.”

  The tall guy whipped the sword off of his back and urged Kanta to take cover. “Get out of here, I'll handle this,” he said, holding the mighty blade at waist-height and sizing me up. The yellowish bone in his grip was nearly as long as the blade itself. A badass weapon, but not the most efficient one, by the looks of it. Stepping forth, he loosed a jab with the thing, which I easily evaded.

  While the swordsman tried his skill, I made sure not to take my eyes off of Kanta. She was my real target; this guy was merely a distraction. For the pain she'd caused me I intended to make her suffer. In my rage state I intermittently picked up on Gadreel's thoughts; scenes of Kanta in the hellfire, of her soul being devoured, of her body being jabbed with molten-hot spears, again and again by plague demons, for eternity. With a toothy grin, I winked at her. “Watch this.”