Where The Heart Lives (7 page)

The way he lived his life until
then had revolved around his ability to protect people from himself. Suddenly,
in an instant, that was no longer possible. For almost a year he had needed to live
in that glass cage, where he would be safe from others.

Confidence, shattered. Heartbreakingly
alone.

Those first few times venturing
beyond its glass walls -- terrifying. After that, months where Eddie did
nothing but stay indoors or sit on the roof of the building, staring at
downtown San Francisco. Watching people. Watching the world.

It had taken another six months
for his confidence to return…but only because he’d had no choice. A friend
needed help. That had been motivation enough for him to test the limits of his
new control, and after that…it had gotten easier.

Taking back his old life had
felt like a miracle.

Now he wondered if he needed to
return to the cage again.

The spare room that Roland had
given him was nearly a thousand square feet in size. No interior walls. Just
windows, overlooking the city. His bed was a mattress on the floor, and his
clothes were stored in plastic bins. Stacks of travel books, language study
guides, and science magazines surrounded his bed, along with a small lamp and a
box full of bottled water.

Eddie found a backpack, and
began stuffing it with underwear, a pair of jeans, and some t-shirts.

He found a small leather wallet,
covered in stains and worn so thin with age it almost broke when he handled it.
No money inside. Just photos. He hesitated, but placed it in one of the bins,
carefully. He had enough distractions.

Free. He’s free. Good
behavior. They let him out because he was a model prisoner.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God, baby.

He’s free.

Eddie closed his eyes, and focused
on his breathing. With a great deal of effort he pushed away the memory of his
mother’s stunned, grief-filled voice.

But there was another voice
inside his head. His own.

Don’t go to New York City.
Go after Malcom Swint, instead
.

Kill him.

For Daphne.

It would be so easy. All it
would take was a thought.

Just one, little, thought.

Eddie shook his head in
disgust. No. This was the
perfect
time to leave San Francisco.

He kept the lamp off. Old
habit. He preferred working in the dark, unseen. The city lights were more than
enough for going through the motions. He had packed this bag so many times he
could do it in his sleep. It gave his brain time to sort through everything he
had been told.

Find the girl.

Air moved across his neck. Eddie
turned. Long Nu stood behind him, silent as a ghost. He was too surprised to
speak—and then he was too busy keeping himself calm as heat flooded his bones
and muscles, rising through his skin. The air warmed around them.

“One more thing,” she said.

Eddie never saw the old woman
move. Suddenly he was falling, falling and falling until he hit the mattress so
hard he bounced. Golden light flashed, and he heard a rough, rubbing sound;
like the belly of an alligator dragging over the floor.

A huge clawed foot settled on
the mattress beside his head. Heat washed over his body, but it was not from
him.

“Look at me,” Long Nu
whispered, her voice deeper now, almost a growl.

Eddie turned his head. It was
too dark for details, but he glimpsed scales rippling over the muscles of a
long, serpentine throat…the hard line of a jaw, the shine of a sharp white
tooth. Golden eyes shone like fire.

“The
Cruor Venator
don’t
just take the blood of shape-shifters,” she said, each word softly hissed. “Any
blood will do. But yours…your
fire
…” A deep rumble filled the air, caged
thunder, born in her throat. “Fire is elemental. Only dragons have fire in
their blood. You will stir their hunger.”

“I’m no dragon,” Eddie
whispered. “I’m human.”

Long Nu leaned away from him, a
slow retreat, revealing a massive body that in the darkness resembled a sinuous
coil of muscle and claws, and draped leather. Eddie did not look too closely. He
began breathing again. His heart pounded so hard he was dizzy -- and that was
dangerous.

Staying calm kept him cool. Staying
calm was the key.

“You’re wrong,” said Long Nu.
“What you bury only grows stronger, in time. This is true of what sleeps in
blood.”

Eddie swallowed. “Stay out of
my head.”

“I can’t,” she said simply. “You
hide so much of your heart, even from yourself. Hide too long, and you will
forget it’s there.”

He sat up, but had to shield
his eyes as golden light flared bright as the sun, blinding him.

When he could see again, he
found Long Nu on her knees, human and mostly naked. Her clothes were torn,
hanging off her in rags. Eddie averted his eyes, and dragged the blanket off
his bed. He handed it to her.

“Ma’am,” he said quietly.

Long Nu’s hand touched his
fingers as she took the blanket. Her skin was hot -- just as hot as his. Even hotter,
when she grabbed his wrist with her other hand, and held him tight. Smoke rose
between them. Eddie set his jaw, and met her golden gaze.

“There are so few left of my
kind,” whispered Long Nu. “Find the girl.”

“I will,” Eddie promised, and
found himself adding, “Whatever it takes.”

Long Nu gave him a mirthless
smile, and the smoke between them suddenly became fire. It did not burn him,
but the flames flickered up both their arms, like tiny deadly fingers.

“If the
Cruor Venator
is
hunting her,” she said softly, “it might just take everything you have.”

***

To read more of WITHIN THE
FLAMES, and to learn about the Dirk and Steele series, please visit my website
at
www.marjoriemliu.com
.

The 4
^th
Book in the
Hunter Kiss Series

Nomad born and bred, demon
hunter Maxine Kiss has always relied upon herself to fight the darkness that
surrounds her, the predators—human, zombie, and otherwise—who threaten the
earth. Haunted by the past, determined to change the future, Maxine soon
understands that to save the man she loves, she has only one choice—to lose
control and release her own powers of darkness…

CHAPTER ONE

What
happens in Texas, stays in Texas. Except when demons are involved.

I
was sitting on the sagging porch of the old farmhouse, sipping an ice-cold
ginger ale, when a red pickup truck appeared around the last bend of the long,
curving, driveway. I stood, shielding my eyes against the late-afternoon
sun—noticing, as had become my habit, the gold glimmer of my wedding ring
standing out in stark relief against the obsidian, mercury-streaked tattoos
that covered my entire left hand.

Dust
kicked up behind the truck, but not much. The driver was taking a slow
approach.

I
hadn’t lived on this land in years. Maybe it was a nosy neighbor coming to
visit. Or a social worker who had heard that a teenage boy was in residence and
not attending school. Could be someone lost—but the driveway was almost three
miles long and blocked by a heavy gate. A bit out of the way, just to ask
directions.

I
felt a tug against my tattooed skin. A persistent ripple that traveled like a
small shock wave from my toenails to the base of my neck, as though an
electrical pulse was moving through Zee and the boys.

I
set down my drink. Against my neck, the tip of Dek’s tattooed tail thrummed,
like the quiet warning of a rattlesnake. When I flexed my fingers, the organic
silver armor covering my right hand tingled. Everything, coming alive as that
red truck rolled and rumbled down the driveway.

The
driver parked in front of the barn, surrounded in a swirling cloud of pale, hot
dust. I couldn’t see much behind the tinted windows, so I listened to the
engine pop and groan as I stepped off the porch.

The
door opened, and a foot dangled out. Fortunately, it was attached to a leg. I
wasn’t always that lucky.

I
saw a simple white sneaker with a thick sole, and an equally thick ankle that
was so swollen the flesh seemed to sag over the top of the shoe. I walked
sideways, peering into the truck to see what else that limb was attached to.

What
I found was a demon having a heart attack.

That’s
what it seemed like at first. The unfortunate host was a woman well over three
hundred pounds, who wore a sleeveless blue sundress that clung to her round
stomach and heavy breasts. Her arms were thick and wide, as was her soft neck,
which was almost lost in her sagging jaw. She had pale skin—around her
hands—but the rest of her was pink and red as a lobster, and dripping with
sweat.

Soaked
brown hair clung to her face, along with a thunderous aura that marked her as
demon-possessed. Somewhere, deep inside, a human soul still
resided . . . but it was impossible to tell just how long it had
been buried beneath that seat of darkness. Some demons, the young ones, clung
with only a light touch, a whisper. Others dug in, latching onto the flesh,
sliding into lives and pulling every string.

Those
clinging shadows rose and fell off the woman’s shoulders with each heaving
breath, and she sat—half-in, half-out of her truck—with her eyes closed and
mouth open, panting and clutching her chest.

It
would be easy for me to exorcise the demon. Even a year ago, I would not have
hesitated. Those gutter rats who regularly escaped the prison veil had no
business possessing humans and feeding off their pain. Nothing had changed my
opinion about that.

But
I’d learned a thing or two about demons—and myself—that blurred the lines
between good and evil. I could no longer cast stones. Not without asking
questions first. Any demon looking for me was either very desperate—or
coerced—and that was bad news, in more ways than one.

So
I waited, silent. Wishing I had gum to chew. The aftertaste of that ginger ale
had gone sour, right along with my stomach. I hated this so much. All the
possibilities of all the bad things this demon might tell me, crowding my head,
making my pulse thicken.

The
possessed woman finally caught her breath and opened her eyes to look at me.

She
didn’t seem to know where to settle her gaze, which flitted above and around,
and on me, with such rapidness it made me dizzy. Finally, she settled on my
eyes, then danced down to the tattoos covering my arms: an unbroken tangle of
obsidian muscle and scales, knotted, curling, shimmering with veins of mercury
that caught the light—though not nearly as much as the glinting crimson eyes
that always remained open and staring.

I’d
found some of my mother’s old white tank tops in the closet and hadn’t seen
much point to leaving them there—or hiding the boys. I had few, if any, secrets
from the people in my life. Which was another dazzling departure from the way I
had been raised.

“Boo,”
I said to the possessed woman, and felt sort of bad when she flinched from me,
like I’d hit her.

Silent,
and with agonizing stiffness, she reached sideways into the passenger seat and
dragged a red plastic bowling bag across her stomach. Her breathing roughened
again, and sweat dripped off the ends of her thin hair.

“Take
it,” she whispered. “Hurry.”

Licking
a bad case of herpes sounded more appealing than taking a gift from a demon.
Safer, too.

I
did not move. “Why are you here?”

“Come
on, it’s fragile.” Her demonic aura twitched and fluttered, tendrils of shadow
flirting with escape. “Please. I was told to come.”

“Who
told you?”

She
flashed me a hard, frightened look. “A voice in a dream. I was ordered to give
you something that belongs to my host.”

I
frowned. A voice in a dream?
Really?

Unfortunately,
it sounded too strange to be a lie. And that demon was genuinely terrified.

I
reached for the bowling bag. I wasn’t worried about its being a bomb. I’d
survive a nuclear blast—or bullets, knives, fire. Sending me to the bottom of
the ocean wouldn’t kill me, either. Not while the sun shone, somewhere above
me.

The
possessed woman snatched back her hand before I had a full grip on the
oversized handle, and I almost dropped it—partially because it was unexpectedly
heavy. The shape as it bumped my leg felt round and hard.

“This
better not be a human head,” I muttered.

She
shuddered. “Close.”

I
flashed her a hard look and unzipped the bowling bag.

No
hair or bone inside. No blood. The afternoon light gleamed off a round, smooth,
surface—clear as glass. I reached inside, bracing myself as the armor encasing
much of my right hand and forearm began tingling again, like pins and needles.

Nothing
happened, though. The armor quieted. I slid my hand under the cool, hard
object—and lifted it from the bowling bag.

I
stared, for a moment unsure what I was looking at. I saw depressions for eyes,
a hard jaw and rows of teeth . . . but it was all wrong, and
eerie.

Yes,
there was a head in the bowling bag. A skull.

But
it was carved from crystal. And it did not look human.