Raw Power: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Demon-Hearted Book 1) Read online

  He wasn't quite so happy for me, though. He backed himself against the wall and looked up at me as though he were faced with Satan himself.

  It was time to wrap this up. I was pleased with my powers, with the new strength I'd gained since the transplant. Blows to the head, simple knives; I seemed impervious to them while the demon was inside me. I instantly began to wonder how I might use these new talents to become the life of every party.

  I could be like Houdini, except totally hardcore.

  But first, there was the dirty hippy. He needed dispatched. The demon in me had made up its mind on the best course of action. What with my being forced into the background, I wasn't really in a position to argue with it.

  We're gonna eviscerate this guy. Paint the alley with his blood, came the demon's suggestion, as if it were the most commonplace, well-adjusted act in history.

  Kneeling down, I took hold of the guy's stomach. My fingers pressed into his shirt, into the soft flesh beneath. Tearing it all away and baring his intestines would be a simple thing; when they were out, I'd skip rope with them, gnaw on them like a dog.

  Wait a minute, I thought inwardly. Maybe that's going too far. I mean, murdering the guy? Thats pretty fucked up, man. Unnecessary, no?

  Didn't matter. The demon seemed pretty sold on this plan.

  Just as I was about to gouge this guy's guts out, there came a gunshot.

  In the next moment, I was doubled over, clutching at my upper arm and thrashing against the concrete. The pain that wreaked my body then was unlike anything I'd ever felt. It radiated from my arm, into my chest, and then into my legs, all while inflicting an intense burning.

  I'd been shot.

  Bullets, apparently, could still do me in.

  I howled, and the sounds issuing from my throat were not altogether my own. I cursed in languages I didn't speak, and then slumped against the wall, sweating, panting and murmuring.

  The hippy was running as fast as his feet could take him for the entrance to the alley, and three people were fast approaching in his place.

  Kubo, Joe and Isabella.

  Kubo had a gun in his hand. Quickly returning it to his shoulder holster, he knelt down beside me and punched me in the side of the head. “You imbecile,” he said through grit teeth. “The hell you doing out here, getting into fights with people? You're drawing unnecessary attention to yourself. I didn't call you here for this shit. We have a job to do. If I hadn't come out here early, then you might've fucked everything up.”

  The bullet in my arm was still aching, and a fresh jolt of pain shot through my body. Wincing, I struggled to draw breath and looked up at him tearfully. “C-chief, I'm sorry... I'm sorry... it... it hurts so damn bad, chief.”

  “Shut up,” he said. “It's not like it's going to kill you.” With a knife in hand, Kubo steadied my upper body and dug right in. With some careful carving, every bit of which I felt in full, he dug the bullet out. It fell to the ground, the blood on it quickly evaporating. Once it was out, the pain immediately stopped and the wound began to heal before my eyes. We're talking incredibly fast, like something out of a movie. I flexed my arm in disbelief, poking and prodding the spot where, just moments ago, I'd had a gunshot wound.

  Kubo stood up, putting his knife away and looking down at me with disgust.

  I rose, steadying myself against the wall. “Why... why did that hurt so much? I got stabbed earlier and it didn't feel anything like that.”

  He arched a brow, patting the gun resting just beneath his jacket. “The bullets are silver, and they're blessed. That's a mighty bad combo for people like you.”

  Joe snickered, tugging on the collar of his jacket and looking to the entrance of the alley. “Maybe you should hit him again, chief. Make him hurt real bad for making such a show, eh?”

  Isabella was sauntering around the alley, talking to herself. She was in another world completely, probably hadn't seen anything that'd gone down in the alley. She ran her hands against the brick walls, her eyes wide and glassy, and fidgeted with the hem of her burlap-colored outfit.

  “The more you insist on misbehaving, the shorter your leash,” said Kubo, starting through the alley. He led the three of us out, to the black SUV, which was parked at the curb. When we were all seated, he didn't waste a second, speeding away from the restaurant in a flash. Some minutes down the road, he flipped open his phone. “I've received word from one of our field agents that the coven has been spotted in a nearby neighborhood. They're targeting a particular infant, by the looks of it. I have the address. We're going there straightaway, just ahead of them.”

  I'd been preoccupied with other thoughts up to that point. I'd very nearly murdered a guy. Savagely. In horror-movie fashion. I felt numb all over, and trembled in disbelief as the hippy's frightened visage turned up again and again in my memory. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a murderer.

  At least, I used to be able to say that.

  Now, with this demon inside of me, I couldn't be so sure.

  I was disturbed by the complete nonchalance with which I'd assaulted those guys, the pleasure I'd felt at breaking their bodies. It just wasn't like me to get off on that, at least, not to this degree. I'd been in the business of roughing people up for a while now, and fights did bring a certain adrenaline rush. But this was something else. This was bloodlust. I felt ashamed and wished I could somehow apologize for what I'd done to those two. Having a demon inside of me was no excuse for walking around like a sociopath. I wasn't sure if it was possible, but I wanted to try and get a tighter grasp on this presence within me, lest it take over completely and do some really unsavory shit.

  Shaking my head, I struggled to get back into the game.

  “I see,” I replied. “We're going to intercept the witches and kill 'em before they can get there?”

  “No,” said Kubo flatly. “We're going to kidnap the kid before they can.”

  SIXTEEN

  I've done a lot of things in my life I'm not proud of. Beaten a lot of people up for money. Peed in my fair share of swimming pools.

  Preparing to kidnap a baby was near the top of the list.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, hoping for some kind of clarification. Somehow, Kubo's suggestion that we were going there to kidnap the kid first didn't sit well with me. What, were we going to take care of the kid till this whole witch thing blew over? Had I been brought on as a demonic daycare worker?

  “I mean what I said,” he replied. He'd taken us into a quiet neighborhood. Well-manicured lawns were lit up by the streetlights which now flickered on in the dusk. He slowed down, scrutinized the houses one-by-one, and then after briefly consulting his phone, pulled to a stop. “This must be the place.” Kubo turned to Isabella and gave her a little nod.

  Sitting upright, Isabella began to sway from side to side, her hands doing some jerky little movements that reminded me of cat's cradle without any string. She kneaded her fingers together, twisting them in an uncomfortable way, and started mumbling to herself feverishly.

  I noticed something about Isabella then, something that I'd neglected to notice before.

  She never closed her damn eyes.

  Those pale, glassy eyes were always open, staring. I looked at her in the side mirror, shuddering as she got busy doing whatever it was she was doing. She'd been called a magician by Kubo during the briefing, but her powers weren't manifesting in any perceptible or impressive way. Joe back there might've been a dick, but at least he could do cool things with fire. Isabella's schtick, well, I could find that on any old Detroit street corner or mental hospital.

  Isabella clammed up and relaxed, folding her hands in her lap.

  I guess that meant she was done. Not that I could perceive any change in our surroundings. “What was that?” I asked, glancing around at the others.

  “Why don't you go check?” suggested Kubo, unlocking the doors to the SUV.

  I stepped out of the vehicle, closing the door behind
me and scanning the surrounding area. We'd pulled up in front of a nice, two-story house. It was painted a light blue, as best I could tell in the failing light. The lawn was big, freshly-mowed, and a well-kept garden could be seen to the right of the porch. The curb was clear, there were no other cars in the street.

  Everything looked thoroughly normal.

  And then it hit me.

  “Holy shit, the SUV's gone.” I'd just climbed out of the thing, and yet, it had disappeared, completely. No way Kubo had managed to drive it away in the space of a second. Panicking, I turned around and started walking into the street.

  I didn't get far, though, ending up with a face-full of invisible SUV.

  The vehicle was still there, all right. Isabella had just made it invisible.

  Scrambling to find the passenger-side door, I threw it open and climbed back inside, stunned. “How the hell did she do that? That's incredible!”

  “You ain't seen nothing yet,” said Joe.

  “All right, phase two, Isabella. Just like we talked about.” Kubo looked back at her, hands on the wheel. “And try to hurry. We need to wrap this up. I have a feeling the witches are on the move.”

  Isabella went back to her bizarre game of pat-a-cake, mumbling and swaying and gesticulating like mad. I looked out the window, wondering what she might do next, and about fell out of my seat when I saw the entire front of the house fading away like a fine mist.

  Imagine taking an eraser to the outside of a house, an eraser that could delete more than just lines on a page. Imagine that you could wear away siding, brick, all of the inner bits of a home and just leave the inside of it exposed, wide open, like the back of a doll house. That's exactly what Isabella had done. The outside of the house had melted away slowly, and we could now plainly see everything that was going on within the abode. I was stunned, glancing nervously to Kubo, who was leaning towards my window and watching the inhabitants of the house mill about.

  The family living there, a young couple and their baby, seemed completely oblivious to our spying. Apparently the erasure of the wall only worked one way. “It's sort of like a one-way mirror,” explained Kubo as his eyes followed a woman. She was mounting the stairs with a bundle in her hands. Walking along an upstairs hallway, she opened the door to one of the three bedrooms and approached a crib, gently setting the bundle inside. She was putting her baby to bed. Tip-toeing out of the room, the woman switched on a night-light and closed the door behind her. We watched it all from afar, like it was some sort of puppet play.

  “So, we have to go in there and take that baby?” I asked.

  Kubo shook his head. “No, you have to go in there and get the baby.”

  I wasn't eager to add kidnapping to my rap sheet. Living like a mercenary who tracks down stolen goods and kicks asses for money doesn't mean I'm without morals. This didn't set well with me at all. The very thought of hopping in there and stealing that kid, of disturbing this normal, happy family's status quo of sleepy suburban bliss, was awful. And then, to top it all off, there was the whole demon thing. Still wreaked with guilt for what I'd done to those guys at the bar, I couldn't help but wonder what the demon in me would do to a baby. What if I went ballistic and hurt the kid? My blood ran cold as I considered that possibility, and it very nearly kept me from leaving the car.

  In my line of work, collecting debts and retrieving stolen stuff, I'd hurt a lot of people over the past few years, never really putting a lot of thought into my actions. Lucian Colt had been a grade-A prick, a guy whose conscience could be bought for the right price, for a long time. Now, with this demon heart, there was an added variable, something that made me extra dangerous. I had a responsibility to keep it in check, to adjust my ordinarily nonchalant attitudes towards violence. But, could I control the thing? I fought on both sides, weighing the pros and cons of taking the baby from its crib. It wasn't right; the very idea made me feel like a terrible person.

  And yet, I knew what we were up against. If those witches got ahold of the kid, there was no telling what they'd do.

  No, that's not true. I knew damn well what they'd do to it, remembering those crime scene photos from Kubo's slideshow with altogether too much vividness.

  That kid would be safer with us. There was no doubt about it.

  Nodding, I put my hand on the door and prepared to exit. “How should I go in? Can I just stroll in? Can Isabella make me invisible, too?”

  Kubo took some time in weighing his thoughts before responding. “No need,” he finally replied. “You should be able to walk up the lawn and just jump up there to the second story window. Aim for the nursery. We'll knock out the window so that you can enter without having to smash through it.”

  My laugh earned me dirty looks from both Joe and Kubo. “Yeah, right, just jump all the way up there. Good one. You guys have a ladder or something I can use? Or, maybe I can sneak in through the back door and--”

  “You'll jump.” Kubo's voice was firm, and he looked set to throw me out of the car if I didn't leave at once.

  I'd done a few remarkable things since receiving this demon heart. Jumping out of the hospital window and landing safely was one. Smashing a desk with a single punch and sprinting at an ungodly speed were others. Somehow, though, a jump of two stories seemed like too much. There was no way I'd be able to do it. Apparently that was what was expected of me, though, and before Kubo could stare at me long enough to bore holes in me, I decided to step out of the car and give it a shot.

  Walking up to the house carefully, I found that its exterior had returned to its normal state, no longer transparent. I couldn't look inside unless I was near a window, but I knew where the nursery was and set my sights on the lacy curtains that marked it. Limbering up, I did a couple of quick stretches before breaking into a jog and leaping into the air.

  I gave it my all, really let my legs act as a spring. It felt like I was pushing the Earth away from me as I left the ground and began towards the house's blue siding.

  I was over the bushes, reaching skyward, when I realized I wasn't going to make it.

  My jump was good, far better than it had ever been, but it wasn't superhuman.

  Flailing, I smacked into the side of the house, an audible thud knocking dust from the siding, and searched for something I might hold onto to keep from falling ass-first into the garden below. That was when the demon's instincts took over, and, like a gecko, I scurried up the side of the house to the second story window.

  It had all happened so quickly I could scarcely say how I did it. One minute I'd been terrified of falling and hurting myself, the next I'd managed a foothold where there was none. With an unnatural deftness, I'd scaled the exterior of the house, clinging to the siding until I could lock a hand around one of the shutters outside the nursery window.

  I slowly pulled myself up, squinting through the window and into nursery.

  The baby, dressed in a blue onesie, was snoring away in his crib.

  I'd made it, was within ten feet of the kid, but how was I going to get at him? Kubo said they were going to get rid of the window so that I could enter the room, but they were taking their sweet time in doing it. Looking out to the street, I frowned in the general direction of the invisible SUV and waited.

  Then, from seemingly thin air, came a tongue of fire. It rolled into the pane of glass, and slowly traced the edges. Before I knew it, the glass was actually melting and the way was open. The pane gave way like candle wax, dripping down the side of the house and crystalizing.

  My hands were getting sore from grasping the edges of the shutters. With one final effort, I swung my legs around and rolled into the room, landing within inches of a cluttered side table. A baby monitor, glowing with a little red light, was situated on it.

  Shit. There's no way they didn't hear me entering the room. For a few moments I stood completely still in the nursery, staring at the door and waiting for someone to barge in and catch me trespassing.

  No one
did.

  The house was still, quiet.

  It was a little while longer before I found the courage to approach the crib. The little tyke was breathing deeply, rolled onto one side and swaddled in a soft-looking blanket. A mop of messy blonde hair, a few drops of drool hanging from the corner of his mouth, he looked like he could sleep through an earthquake.

  And it was a good thing, too, because I could see Kubo standing in the street now, trying to get my attention with a wave. He was motioning to me, bringing his arms to his chest.

  He wanted me to grab the kid.

  Licking my lips and looking between Kubo and the sleeping baby, I slowly extended my arms.

  Kubo rushed back into the invisible vehicle, disappearing from view. Still, I hesitated. What if I woke the kid and his parents heard it on the baby monitor? I was the good guy here, trying to save their baby from getting carved up by witches. But they didn't know that. If they walked in and saw me hovering near the crib, they'd freak out, and I wouldn't be able to blame them.

  Something moved outside, shifting across the lawn.

  And it wasn't Kubo.

  Gulping, I leaned over the crib, trying to get a better look. A soft scratching, as of some small animal scaling the outside of the house, could be heard. A squirrel?

  No. What I'd seen had been too large and dark for a squirrel.

  Unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, it'd been shaped like a large teardrop, and had slithered through the grass silently. Jet black, the color of midnight.

  Instinctively, I grabbed the kid and held him close, falling back a couple of paces and pressing my back to the wall. Crouching, I took cover behind an open toy box and fixed my eyes on the window.

  From outside, a large, pale hand tipped in thick, grotty nails gripped the sill. Then another. The two hands belonged to the shadowy thing I'd seen racing across the lawn, and I could see it for what it was now, the scarcest impressions of its hideous visage visible beneath the shade of a large, black hood.

  A witch slid into the room with all the grace of a silent gymnast.