Demon Marked (16 page)

“And she ran off instead of coming to the safe house,” Andre said, silently admitting that the chain of events seemed strange.

“Right!” Something sparked in Emma's eyes. “I bet she didn't know that those men who came for—”

“Women. Little Francis sent two women to meet her.”

“Still, I bet she didn't know they were Conti people. What if she thought they were someone else? People who were trying to get her?”

“But they're not after her; they're after your purse?”

“The
spell book
that's in my purse.”

“Okay, so assume you're right and some nut job wants this magic book,” Andre said, doing his best to keep his tone neutral. “Why would they go after Ginger? Wouldn't they assume you have the book?”

“Not if they'd already searched my apartment and found it wasn't here.” Emma paused, her tongue darting out to dampen her lips as she thought. “And not if they had seen me this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don't have a purse or a pocket big enough to hold a book.” She gestured down at herself, drawing his attention to the fact that her top two buttons were still undone. If he leaned forward the slightest bit, he'd be able to see the lace of her bra. Somehow, he managed to resist the urge. “So if someone were following me, they'd know I don't have it.”

No matter how unlikely, the thought still made Andre's jaw clench. He didn't like the idea that someone was following Emma, spying on her, hoping to steal from her.

“I have to try to call Ginger again. Could I use your bud?” Emma asked. “Our wall phone was broken when we moved in.”

“I'll call her for you. I programmed it into my bud this morning after I met with Little Francis, just in case we needed it again,” Andre said, ordering his phone to call Ginger Spatz.

He wasn't going to tell Emma that he had another Ginger programmed into his bud. Or two other Emmas, for that matter. He was suddenly feeling more ashamed of his collection of numbers than usual.

“She's not answering?” Emma asked.

“No ... and no voice mail.”

“Shit! What if they've got her? Or what if they killed her and—”

“Emma, relax. Who is ‘they'?” He reached for her, but she danced a few steps away, nearly tripping over the ruined couch. “You're blowing this theory out of pro—”

“Don't talk to me like I'm crazy!”

“I'm just saying you shouldn't get ahead of yourself,” he said. “Right now, the only ‘they' you have to worry about are the Death Ministry members who think you had something to do with their friend's disappearance.”

For a second she looked ready to blow, but then her arms fell to her sides. “You're right. I do need to worry about that.”

“As well as who really took that body.”

She nodded slowly. “Right ... and how all these events are related. Because they
have
to be related.”

“They do?”

“Yes. It can't just be a coincidence that a dead body disappears, my apartment is trashed by people looking for my grimoire—”

“You don't know that for—”

“And that my roommate is on the run for her life,” Emma continued, ignoring his attempts at reason.

“Ginger could be fine,” he said, the lawyer in him determined to show her the holes in her logic. “What if she's just wasted and confused? What if your spell book was stolen by one of the people who came to loot the apartment after—”

“It wasn't stolen. It was in my purse. If you'd been listening, you would remember that.” Without further commentary, she headed toward the door.

“Jesus Christ,” Andre whispered under his breath as he followed her. “Emma, where are you going?”

“Out to look for Ginger.”

“But you have no idea where—”

“She was uptown a few hours ago. I'll find her.”

“But what about the Death Ministry?” Andre asked, grabbing her arm just before she reached the door. “What about—”

“They can wait.”

“Right. I'm sure they'll be fine with—” She twisted from his grasp and disappeared into the darkened hall. “Emma! Damn it!” Andre leaned out the door, calling after her. “Do you want me to try to lock the damned door this time?”

“I don't have a key,” she threw over her shoulder.

“So the key on this nail is—”

“What?” Her footsteps grew louder as she hurried back to where he stood. “What key?”

“This one.” Andre pointed to the small blue key hanging on the nail next to the door.

She stared at the wall before shaking her head slowly. “That's not mine. Or Ginger's.”

Andre paused. Her conspiracy theory still seemed far-fetched, but why would someone break into her apartment, trash the place, leave the few valuables, but place a key on the nail near the door before they left? It was ... suspicious, to say the least. “Was it here before?”

“I don't know. I don't remember.” Emma grabbed it and turned it over. “St. Anthony's. Number 127.”

“There's a church with a homeless shelter called St. Anthony's.”

“And I bet they have old-fashioned lockers with keys,” Emma said, looking up at him. “You want to go check it out?”

“I don't know. This seems ... off.”

“Like a trap?”

“I wasn't going to go there,” he said, “but yes, I suppose it could be a trap.”

“Or maybe Ginger came back and left it.”

“Maybe.”

“Either way, we've got nothing else to go on.”

“You were ready to leave me a second ago,” he said, leaning closer, sneaking that peek down her shirt he'd nobly abstained from a moment before. He just couldn't help himself. For all her crazy talk, Emma was smart and brave—the combo turned him on more than he would have dreamed possible.

“I wasn't going to leave.” She shrugged and her eyes drifted down to his lips, giving him hope that he wasn't the only one affected by the chemistry between them. “I was just mad. I was going to wait for you at the bottom of the stairs.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. Like it or not, I need you.”

“So do you?” He cocked his head, smiling his signature grin. “
Like
needing me?”

She shook her head, but he saw the slight curve at the edge of her lips. “I like it all right. So far. But right now I've got shit to do.” She held the key up between them. “So are you coming or not?”

“Why don't we head back to the Conti offices and get Douglas to search the police database first, see if they're looking for anyone matching your description. That way we could rule out the possibility that Greg's body is down at the county morgue, and then we—”

“Why don't we call Douglas and have him do that while we're on our way to the homeless shelter? That way, we kill two stones with one bird.”

He laughed. “Isn't that two birds with one stone?”

“Does it really matter?” she asked, poking him in the chest with her key. “
Two
things are dead from throwing
one
thing. I think I've made my point.”

“I really like you,” Andre said, shocking himself and Emma. Two birds with one stone, indeed.

She actually blushed pink before blowing air through her lips hard enough to make them vibrate. “You're okay. Better than I thought.”

“Better in what way? In the—”

“Oh, just shut up and come on.” She turned and stormed down the hall once more, leaving Andre to follow, strangely pleased by the fact that he'd made Emma blush.

S
t. Anthony's gray stone facade was crumbling and in need of a good deal of repair, but there was a certain nobility to the way the church shrugged its way out onto the street, forcing everyone who passed to take notice of its last remaining stained-glass window. The collection of panes was twenty feet wide and nearly as tall, depicting Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.

It was beautiful ... haunting.

Emma had been raised Catholic—Father Paul was serious about all of the kids in his house dragging their butts to Mass at least once a week—but she'd never been sure what she believed as far as the spiritual realm was concerned. She knew there was supernatural evil in the world, so it made sense that there was also supernatural good.

But was that supernatural good God ... or something else? And no matter what or who it was, would it ever truly listen to her, a person marked by demonic evil?

“Are you sure you want to go in here?” Andre asked. “I imagine it's going to be a rough crowd.”

“You'd be surprised.” Emma led the way around the church, headed toward the back entrance where a sign urged people in need of a meal or a bed to check in with the volunteer on duty. “At the Lutheran shelter where I stayed last spring, there were some really great people. Even some families with little kids.”

“You stayed at a shelter?”

“I did. For a couple days. It was either that or the street.”

“Wow. That's ... tough,” Andre said, with that look of genuine concern that was still so new to her. She'd never seen Andre be genuine about much of anything. But something had changed between them in the past few hours, something that drew her to him just as powerfully as the physical attraction simmering between them.

Physical attraction.
God, his kiss, his hands on her breasts, making her feel things she'd never dreamed she could feel. The need pumping through her veins had been even more intense than it had been the first time they'd touched.

It had left her wanting more. And more and more and more, until it was hard to look at Andre without plotting ways for them to be alone. She was past ready to see what else she'd been missing—and not willing to wait much longer. She'd waited long enough, and who knew how much time she had left.

If someone had found the spell book, her life could be in danger again. Most of the serious spells in the grimoire required the aid of a person marked by aura demons. Not just anyone could pick up the book and start casting—even if they could properly translate and pronounce the demon lexicon. They would need Emma or someone like her.

Should they come for
her
, she would have options—refuse to help them the way she'd refused Ezra, or take a chance and attempt to use her curse as a weapon. One of the spells she'd been translating talked about casting out the demon hunger onto one's enemies until the “unmarked perished from the inability to feed.” But honestly, she wasn't sure even a life-or-death situation could tempt her to speak any of the grimoire's words out loud.

What if she wasn't translating the spell correctly? She feared becoming something worse than she was already—like the monster her brother Stephen had been at the end—too much to take the chance. Dying would be preferable to becoming something even closer to demon than human.

Emma shuddered but forced a tight smile for the men hanging out near the back entrance, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes that smelled like they contained something other than pure tobacco. The poor could get the ashes left over from burning Inuago demon pellets for a few dollars per ounce. The high wasn't nearly as strong and was especially hard on the liver, but it was far cheaper than a shot of whiskey.

Just the thought of demon drugs made Emma's stomach roll. She held her breath until she and Andre reached the door.

“Let me do the talking, okay?” Emma asked as Andre held open the heavy glass and let her pass. “You're too lawyery.”

“I'm not too lawyery.”

“Okay, fine, then you're too mobby,” she said, stepping into the warm, clammy lobby ... if you could call it that.

It was certainly nothing fancy. A dilapidated green couch squatted in a corner, three sets of double doors—one on each wall—led to destinations unknown, and a yellowed sliding-glass window offered a view into a small office space with desks crammed together and a half dozen wall phones packed haphazardly behind the woman working the desk.

The walls of the space were flat beige, and the tile looked like it hadn't been replaced since the demon emergence. Great cracks slithered beneath their feet, letting in tufts of something black and fibrous. Probably the source of the moldy smell lingering beneath the pungent aroma of grilled onions coming from the dining hall.

“Sometimes mobby gets answers.” Andre wrinkled his nose at the tile.

“Let's try friendly person from the neighborhood first. If that doesn't work, you can go mobby,” Emma whispered as she got in line behind a man and a woman signing up for meal vouchers.