Customers at the bar were complaining loudly while I hurried over to the open door. I needed to figure out who was coming. From this position, I could retreat upstairs to my fortified apartment, if I needed to. I hated to abandon my patrons to a hungry demon; they were all I had other than Shock. But I might have to in order to call in reinforcements. As the very last resort, I could call Vex for help.
Not that I’d ever had to resort to that.
Lo wiped up the spill with a wet towel as Carl, one of our regulars, bitched, “That stupid cat leaves white hair all over me, and I don’t even touch it. Now it steals my drink?”
“Shut up—you’ll get another one.” Lo’s sly smile took the sting out of her blunt order. Carl smiled sheepishly in return as he brushed at his mismatched shirt and baggy jeans. He liked it when women told him what to do, and both Lo and I in our different ways had figured that out early on.
Lolita was my rock, always there for me for the past five years. She was tall and voluptuous with an hourglass figure and a lusty swagger that caught everyone’s eye. Lo took full advantage of the sensual charge she ignited in both sexes, flirting indiscriminately. She was open to all kinds of relationships, but she was slow to slap a label on anything or create expectations that couldn’t be met. She liked no pressure, and not pressuring other people. That meant she rarely let people go, not for good, and the interlocking family she maintained openly and honestly included a number of relationships that continued to meander and grow organically. One of them was sitting right now at the end of the bar, chatting up the prettiest girl in the place; Boymeat was Lo’s friend, her former playmate, and younger brother in her family of free spirits.
Lolita was just as vulnerable to demons as anyone else, but having her at my back made me feel safer. Especially this time; I didn’t recognize the approaching signature formed by the unique energy waves that radiated from each demon. The signature, getting stronger, resembled Shock’s distinctive buzz, but it was much more chaotic and jarring. It reminded me of Pique, the latest horror to invade my territory and feed off my people.
If Pique was coming that fast, it couldn’t be good. He was constantly on the move, like a shark, stirring up trouble, provoking people to feed off their irritation. Even worse, Pique liked to drain his victims of all their emotions.
A yellow cab pulled up outside. The signature was much clearer—a buzzing, tingling feeling that ran along my skin. It rose in intensity until it abruptly broke off. Then the buzzing restarted, rising again.
It
was
Shock’s signature. She was the most important person in my life. Shock had always been a demon, whereas I had started out human and made my transformation into demonhood as a teenager. She became one of my first friends after I had been turned, and she was the only demon who’d never tried to hurt me or take anything from me. Shock had the same progenitor as Plea, the demon who had turned me, so among demons we were considered siblings. Everyone at the bar thought she was my half sister, born of the same mother but with different fathers. That explained our last names and why Shock was so petite and blond whereas I was brunette with a classic California tan.
But I could tell from Shock’s signature that something was wrong with her. Very wrong. She was
pulsing.
The cab door flung open and Shock’s familiar slender figure appeared. With her men’s sleeveless undershirt and loose jeans, she looked like a kid from the neighborhood. Her white-blond hair stood only an inch high over her sharply defined face, but her rounded breasts and hips left no doubt that she was female. Her expression was oddly blank as she staggered jerkily between the parked cars. She cut through three people who separated for her without a word, glancing back curiously.
“Allay . . . ,” she croaked.
Shock’s pulsing energy made me instinctively bristle, ready to defend myself. This wouldn’t be the first demon who had imitated Shock’s appearance in order to get close enough to try to steal my energy.
I was fixated even as I wanted to run. “Is that really you, Shock?”
“Help me,” Shock whispered.
Shock never asked for help. She was the one who helped people. She was an emergency medical technician, saving lives as she soaked up the stunned, pained emotions of the people she scraped off the streets. I couldn’t believe this vibrating creature with the shaking hands was Shock.
Abruptly she stopped short, just out of arm’s reach. One hand held on to the doorframe, and she clutched her stomach with her other arm. She looked ready to collapse.
Never let another demon get within touching distance.
That was the first advice Shock had given me when she tracked me down in Southern California. Within months after I had absorbed Plea’s essence, word of my existence had quickly spread within the demon world. Vex, the head of my line, had first sent Revel, then Shock, to fetch me to live in safety in his New York City territory. In exchange for his protection against the other demons, I had to do things for Vex, things I didn’t like. But I didn’t see any way around it. His influence kept most of the other demons away from me, though I still had to deal with rogues—the demons who didn’t do as ordered by Vex and Glory, the progenitors of the two existing demon lines.
Only Shock was careful to stay more than arm’s length away from me at all times. I always had to make the first move to get closer to her, even when it was something as simple as sitting down on a barstool next to her.
The fact that she was swaying out of reach, keeping her distance, was proof enough for me.
“Shock! What’s wrong with you?” I reached out and drew her into the bar.
Shock stumbled against me, her hands clenching involuntarily into fists as her entire body spasmed. “Upstairs now, Allay. Or there’s gonna be fireworks.”
I looked over my shoulder and down the street as cars flowed by. It was hard to sense other demons when Shock, with her abrasive signature, was so close to me. “Is someone after you?”
Shock shuddered hard, clenching her jaw until she couldn’t answer. Everyone in the bar was watching, except for a few yahoos in the back shouting over their pool game. But for now the most animated expression was mild interest. Patrons staggered in dead drunk often enough that Shock’s condition wasn’t remarkable. The Den was known to give away cups of great coffee after midnight.
Lolita came out from behind the bar. “Need help?”
“I’m not sure.” I half dragged Shock farther into the bar, toward the inner door that led to the stairs to my apartment on the second floor.
Lo approached and took only one look at Shock’s rigid expression, blurting out, “That looks like an overdose. I’m calling 911.”
“Shock doesn’t do drugs. You know that.” I couldn’t let Lo call the EMTs. Demons could make their bodies appear any way they wished, but Shock was somehow losing control of herself. “I’m taking her upstairs. Maybe she’s just been scared by something,” I added to appease my bartender. “Maybe . . .”
Lolita shook her dark curls. “
Rape?
” she mouthed in concern, taking Shock’s arm to help her.
I gave Lo a stricken look over the top of Shock’s hunched head. The way she was holding on to herself, shoulders tight, knees together, it did look as if Shock had been violated. But a human couldn’t have hurt her—it must have been another demon.
Drawn to my surprised distress, Shock latched on to my arm. Her aura flared as she tried to stop herself from absorbing my energy, but her favorite emotion was too tempting.
“I’ll take her up!” I insisted, pulling Shock away from Lo. “Stay with the bar, Lolita.”
Lolita glanced back at the now avidly interested patrons. The music was drowning out our words, but clearly there was something wrong with Shock. I felt the tottering of the semiprofessional wall I had erected to keep everyone from asking questions so I wouldn’t have to lie to them. I liked being their confessor, but for that to work, my own life couldn’t intrude.
Lo turned to face everyone, her hands on her hips. Though she reveled in breaking down boundaries in every way possible, she protected my right to privacy. “You’re supposed to be drinking, not gawking at us,” she called out to Jose as she returned to the bar, asking if he wanted another.
The door to the stairs closed behind me, shutting out most of the sounds in the bar. It was a good thing demons were strong, because I had to drag Shock up every creaking step to my apartment door. As soon as it slammed shut behind us, I demanded, “Shock, what’s wrong?”
Shock stuttered, hardly able to move her lips, “Birthing . . .”
“You’re not going to—”
“Split. In two.” Shock grimaced at me, her face rippling with the pulsing of her aura. “Not safe. The demon . . . It’ll attack me.”
“Holy shit.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I repeated myself several times as I helped Shock across the slanting floor of my kitchen. It was big enough to hold an old-fashioned Formica-topped table with matching green vinyl chairs, and had a frosted window over the sink facing an airshaft. There was a coffeemaker for when I had visitors, but no microwave, toaster, or any of the usual food clutter that filled ordinary kitchens. The back of the counter was lined with a row of books, with a few piles on top. I kept only the barest essentials in the refrigerator as cover—some cheese, bottled goods that wouldn’t spoil quickly, and several bottles of soda that were years old.
I dragged Shock through the arch into the front room, which was strewn with odds and ends, the comfortable clutter of daily life. My place had never been renovated, so the battered tin ceilings and exposed pipes were thick with paint, and the plaster had buckled and cracked over the lathe. There was no bed because I didn’t sleep, so I put Shock down on the old red sofa. She didn’t look good, but I didn’t know whether this was normal; I had never seen a demon birth before.
Shock’s last offspring was Stun, born fifty years ago. He made my skin crawl every time I had to deal with him, but since he was one of Vex’s minions, I had no choice. It bothered me to think that a creature like that had come from Shock.
I was determined to avoid birthing a demon at all costs. I consumed only the bare minimum I needed to survive, never building up reserves. Not only did it make me a less-tempting target for other demons who wanted to absorb my energy, but it made it impossible for me to overdose and birth another demon into the world.
When a demon absorbed too much emotional energy, it split in two, giving birth asexually. The original demon was basically unchanged, while another fully grown demon was created. New demons were born with memory traces from their progenitor, and the basic knowledge about the ways of the world, other demons, and how to feed off the energy of human emotions. It had been difficult for me, with Plea’s knowledge clashing against my seventeen years of human memories. I had eventually coped by walling off those unsettling thoughts and feelings—visions of myself hurting people, giving in to ugly desires, surrounded by reaching hands. Those thoughts made me feel tainted, inhuman.
But my body seemed the same; in that way nothing had changed. I listened to my own heartbeat for hours in the early days, feeling the blood pulse through my veins, cutting myself to watch the red rivulets flow down my skin until my flesh miraculously healed, digging deeper despite the excruciating pain to see muscle and the glint of bone, over and over again, until I wearied of examining my own body from the outside in. Other than the way I healed, the only thing that felt different was that my appetite was now focused on emotions instead of food. Laughter was like sugar cookies, cynicism like a tart lemon, and comfort like a bowl of warm stew, satisfying to my heart.
I had asked Shock what her body felt like, and she said it was the same. She was even more fascinated by her hu manlike yet ephemeral body. She had a habit of clasping her wrist to feel her pulse race when she was pumped up on adrenaline.
I eyed her nervously. “How much longer?”
“Almost there.” Shock panted, curling into fetal position. “You got any energy? That’ll help. Over with faster.”
I gently clasped her hand so she could draw what she needed. The aura around our hands flared orange with my fear.
Shock writhed on the sofa, her feet kicking the cushions as her back arched. I didn’t need to turn on the light—a pearly glow filled the room as energy shed off her like the tail of a comet. Surely every demon within a few blocks could feel her signature now, amplified by the impending birth.
With a spike of panic, I realized I hadn’t bolted the door behind us. What if the door hadn’t closed below? What if Lo came upstairs when she heard Shock’s strangled cries? But she was holding on to me so tightly that I couldn’t let go.
Shock released my hand the instant before energy exploded from her body. The shock wave thrust me back against the wall. Cracks radiated away in the plaster where I hit. I couldn’t breathe; I could only stare.
Shock was flat on her back, nearly rigid. The lustrous glow swelled so brightly that the outline of her body grew fuzzy. I almost had to turn away; it hurt my eyes, but I couldn’t stop looking. I was born human, so it was hard for me to remember that I was a being of pure energy now. Demons looked exactly like humans, felt like real humans, so it was easy for me to forget my true nature.
This—
this
made it real. The veil of flesh ripped away as Shock’s body split apart.
The brilliant glow shattered as the upper part of Shock rose from the sofa. But Shock still lay there, twisting in agony as the light-filled shadow tore from her flesh.
A brand-new demon stood up before me. As the blinding light began to fade, the last remnants of energy burned off in its creation. The new demon looked like Shock. It was naked, sexless, but the slender form and short white hair were Shock’s.