Raw Power: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Demon-Hearted Book 1) (10 page)

 
What the hell is going on with me? How did I do that?

 
I didn't feel any different. For a guy who'd just gone through a heart transplant not two days ago, I guess I was in mighty fine shape, but I still felt very much like good ol' Lucian. It was painfully clear, though, that there was much more than just Lucian running under the hood. Something had changed inside of me, something
crucial
. Something that allowed me to knock apart expensive wooden furniture with a single stroke of the fist.

Kubo had said that my powers were still developing. They were a mystery. There was no telling what I would become, what I would be capable of down the line. For the first time, the thought of gaining inhuman powers was frightening. I always thought that having super strength or the ability to fly might be cool, but actually exhibiting supernatural abilities made me sick to my stomach. Things were changing inside of me. Things that I couldn't control. And they would only continue to change in ways that no one could predict. Someday, it was possible, I'd get to the point where I wouldn't even recognize myself.

 
I remembered how, at the hospital with Dr. Sargasso, I'd looked into that antique mirror and seen my “true” reflection. Just hazily recalling the awful face of that monstrosity that'd stared back at me was enough to get my legs shaking and my stomach sinking through the floor. That was what I
really
was now, on the inside, at least. Gulping, I raced off to the bathroom and turned on the light, looking nervously into the mirror and prodding my face delicately.

I was still the famously handsome Lucian. My usual features were intact. My outward appearance hadn't changed, just like the doctor had said. Still, I was apprehensive. I had a literal monster living inside of me, rent-free. There had to be some kind of down-side to this beyond just lifting a few records from Sam's. I walked around my apartment in a daze, feeling like an utter stranger, and just marveled at the busted desk while The Stooges raged on.

 
Shutting off the record player, I clenched my teeth and sauntered off to bed. I'd had more than enough self-discovery for one day. The heavy questions weighing on my mind were simply too much, and the implications too mind-bending. I'd flood my brain with sleep and think this thing through with a clearer head in the morning. Kubo had said that my powers would begin to manifest soon, but even he didn't seem to know what would happen inside of me. No one within this Veiled Order did, and they knew pretty much
everything
else. I was a loose cannon, a time bomb waiting to go off for all I knew.

I settled into bed, casting off my covers and rolling onto my stomach.

 
Maybe you'll get some rest and feel better about this in the morning,
I thought. But then, before I could stop it, another thought crossed my mind.
This monster inside of you... does it sleep?

The rest of the night was spent trying to dodge that question inside my own head, and attempting to ignore the nagging presence of something else in the room with me. I'd felt this same presence the night before, when my body had betrayed me and the reins had ended up in someone else's hands.

I was brand-new to this “Demon-Heart” thing, but I was already having second-thoughts about it.

***

The rattling of my work-issue phone woke me up sometime in the late afternoon. I rolled onto my side and picked the thing up, fumbling with it until I managed to open the black clamshell, and then looked over the screen groggily. There was a text message waiting for me, from Kubo, and it was as curt as I would have expected from a guy like him. No “How are you?” or “Good morning!” Just straight to the business.

I read it aloud, yawning. “Meeting at Boulder Brewery, 5 PM, sharp.” That last word was written in all-caps. Kubo was certainly the type to value punctuality.

Boulder Brewery was a bar and grill downtown. It was a little ways from my apartment, but I figured that if I started for it now I could make it there on foot with more than enough time to eat, drink and enjoy myself before getting down to brass tacks with Kubo and the gang. The chief almost certainly wasn't inviting me out for wings and beer, after all.

 
I peered through the blinds and found it looked to be a fair day. Pulling on some clothes I washed my face and stepped out the door, but not before queueing up
Raw Power
on my smartphone and sticking my earbuds in.

FOURTEEN

 
I was into my second listen of
Raw Power
and crossing Monroe Street when the urge to run came over me. Not for any particular reason. I just plain wanted to sprint.

You've gotta understand, I've never been the athletic type. From childhood I detested rigorous physical activity, preferring to sit around and have the action come to me. If you ask my mother, she'll dig up a few old photo albums featuring pictures of me during what she affectionately calls my “fluffy phase”. In gym class, I was always the slowest kid to run a mile; hell, I'd cut across the parking lot and hide between the faculty's cars where my teacher couldn't see, and then munch on snack cakes I'd smuggled till the class was almost over and I could jog to the finish line, pretending I'd succeeded. In recent years my tolerance for physical activity, mainly of the ass-kicking type, had grown, but you still weren't going to find me toiling away in a gym.

But, damn it, I wanted to run.

And so I did.

The rampaging guitar in the second half of “Gimme Danger” propelled me down the streets. It was like heroin; even if I'd wanted to stop listening I wouldn't have been able to take the earbuds out. I could feel a fire in my blood, and a satisfying burn wormed its way down my legs as I met the ground with hard, rapid steps. I wished I'd worn something more comfortable for running in, as my Chuck Taylor's weren't really going to cut it, but I ran anyhow.

In all my years, I couldn't remember enjoying running this much. It felt completely effortless, like I was being propelled by forces outside myself. The burn in my legs faded quickly and I began to give in to the momentum I'd built. Like a practiced sprinter I tore down the sidewalk, bypassing other pedestrians with shopping bags who looked at me like I was insane.

Actually, that wasn't right. They weren't looking at me like I was crazy. They were staring on in disbelief.

 
Because I was going
really
fucking fast.

If Usain Bolt could somehow breed with a muscle car, I'd have been their weird, hybridized son. It hadn't registered until the other people on the street took notice, but when I caught microsecond-long glimpses of their mouths hanging agape, I knew it was me. The scenery was passing by so quickly it was dizzying, the buildings zipping by as though I were sticking my head out of the window of a truck going seventy-plus down the road.

 
I was at the Boulder Brewery before I knew it, and came to a stop so sharp that the soles of my high tops shed a few layers of rubber in the process. Catching my breath outside the door, I was thankful for the lack of passersby here. It was still early, and the place didn't look particularly crowded. Grinning, I stretched a little, flexing my legs.
Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Draws a lot of attention, sprinting around like The Flash. I bet Kubo would be pissed if he saw me doing that out in public.

The run had increased my already monstrous appetite. Rubbing at my gut, I strolled into the restaurant, and was seated at the bar soon thereafter. The Boulder Brewery, if you've never been there, is one of my favorite restaurants in town. They serve this kick-ass bunless burger, a whole pound of beef, topped in barbecue pulled pork and fried onion strings. Oh, and then there were the endless cheese fries and a selection of craft beer that would give the most hardened beer hipster tingles in all the right places. I didn't come here too often, as the food was a bit pricy, but with my wallet still burgeoning I figured I could afford to splurge.

I called over the bartender, a sexy cougar with a low-cut white top and a pair of smokey, greenish eyes, and ordered a rum and coke to start with. I hoped Kubo wouldn't mind me imbibing before the job. A short while later she dropped my drink off with a big smile and I took a long sip. It was just after 4 PM. Kubo wasn't planning to meet until 5. That gave me enough time to scarf down a meal and a few more drinks.

 
Wonder what Kubo's got for us,
I thought.
It's probably big, whatever it is. Maybe he knows where the witches have gone. Oh, man... when we find them, I'm going to tear them apart, limb from limb.
The more I thought about the coven, about the mission ahead, the more I started itching for a fight. I wasn't just a weak human anymore. I was a demon-hearted, desk-smashing engine of destruction, and when I met those bitches again I was going to make them sorry they'd ever taken up hocus-pocus.

I centered my drink on the coaster and leaned over the bar, intending to start a little small-talk with the bartender, when I felt a firm bump to my right shoulder. Someone had jostled me, hard, and it was all I could do not to fall off of my stool. I took hold of the counter and remained upright, shooting a dirty glance at the guy who'd bumped me.

The dude had at least a foot on me and was wearing a black leather jacket. His hair was long, with large swaths shaved out of the sides. I didn't know what to make of that. If this was some new style, then it was the trashiest, stupidest thing I'd ever seen. The guy's gaze darted my way and a sneer drifted across his lips. Putting one of his elbows on the bar next to me, he cast a long shadow and started barking at the staff. He spoke like an idiot, with a deep voice so booming that his words could scarcely be parsed. He said something about whiskey, then sent one of his thick palms against the top of the bar with all the fury of a horse's hoof.

That was when it happened.

When the guy jostled the bar with his hand, my rum and coke slowly edged over, falling from the coaster and spilling across the counter.

Getting bumped by some ruffian at a bar was something I could handle. Whatever. It happens.

But having my drink spilled?

That was something I simply couldn't abide.

Deep within me an intense anger sprang up from seemingly nowhere. I'd been in a great mood up to that point, energetic and pleasant. In the time it took for my spilled drink to reach the edge of his elbow, I'd grown absolutely livid, however. Clearing my throat, I tapped him on the shoulder and leaned in. “You've gone and spilled my drink, mate. I hope you plan on buying me another.”

The rough in the leather jacket hadn't even noticed the spill, apparently, but turned to face me, the sneer burgeoning across his acne-scarred face once again. “Oh, my bad, bro,” he muttered in that deep voice of his. That he was anything but sorry was clear from the very first syllable. Dipping one of his thick fingers in the puddle of drink, he swirled it around and then flicked a bit of it at me. “Seems to me like your drink's still there, bud. Maybe you just lap it off the bar like a dog, 'stead of leaving a mess for this here pretty lady.” He grinned at the now timid bartender, his yellow choppers looking crooked and stumpy.

The anger took over.

Well, not the anger, exactly.

But something inside of me surged to the fore, eclipsed my consciousness temporarily, just as it had that night when I'd escaped the hospital. It was uncomfortable, a feeling of terrible violation. Someone else surfaced while I was simultaneously buried. And yet, in these particular circumstances, I waived my discomfort. I didn't like like the feeling of this emerging presence within me, but I wasn't about to try and bottle it up, either.

It was the demon.

I uttered words then that I, personally, had had no intention of speaking. They came from another set of lips entirely, from a second mind caged within my own body, and when they'd been spoken, I sat there, stupefied, my jaw dropping nearly as far as the surly, leather-clad prick's did.

The exchange went like this.

“I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother, Eugenia,” I began. Bear in mind that I'd never seen this guy in my life, and that there was no way on Earth I could have possibly known his grandma's first name. “Pancreatic cancer is the silent killer. I'm surprised she lasted as long as she did, to be frank.”

So, in case you're as lost as I was then, I apparently knew this guy's grandmother's name, and that she'd just recently died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Don't ask me how I knew that.

“W-what?” he said, his punchable face contorting into a mess of confusion. “Do I know you?”

I smirked. The demon was back, and he wasn't through yet. “Eugenia and I went way back. I knew her when she was held up during the firebombing of Hamburg. Very heroic, the way she sucked Allied cock day and night just to get out of that hellhole. You know, your grandmother, that legendary whore, got knocked up by one of the Americans back there and gave birth to your father in '44, when the war was winding down. I was there, too. She sucked a good dick, Eugenia. I wonder if, in the end, she could still remember the taste of my--”

The bruiser's fist was locked around my collar before I could finish.

 
“The fuck did you say?” he demanded. I have to admit, the guy looked more spooked than angry just then. Apparently he really did have a grandmother named Eugenia, who'd died of pancreatic cancer recently, and who'd had a son in 1944 after surviving the Allied firebombing of Hamburg. Though, by the looks of it, he hadn't known about the
finer
details of his grandmother's wartime exploits.

Apparently the demon in me wasn't intimidated, because I blew the guy a kiss and continued. “She used to love it when the soldiers gave it to her rough, passing her around like a plaything. A tight little ass on that one, too. Why, your daddy, Richard, didn't include that in the eulogy last Tuesday morning, did he?”

The guy went mental, tossing me off of my stool. Red-faced and not a little horrified, he pointed to the door and then motioned to a table of scruffy-looking guys in the corner. “Out, now. I'm going to teach you some manners, motherfucker.” He pulled the edge of his jacket aside, revealing the hilt of a big knife. “I'll teach you better than to talk shit about my grandmother, you prick.”