Red Moon Demon (Demon Lord) (11 page)

T
W
E
LVE

“Ther
e
are worse things than

death, but nothing quite so fun.”

—
Caine Deathwalker

The address was Mission Catholic Church, currently providing a food service for the homeless. The church felt weird, like the energy here was uncommitted, neither black or white. Just … pure energy, waiting on tap.
Interesting.

I’d parked in the church’s parking lot on the side. The stairs going up the outside of the building led to the second floor, and were very well
crafted
. The place was mostly handmade before machines were used in
construction
. The stone blocks had seen a lot of time go by.

Angie and I walked to the front, noticing the six bells were clearly handmade. They’d been hanging there longer then I’d been alive. The double wooden doors were hand carved. I may hate all religio
n
s, but I had to hand it to the
Catholics
; they
know
how to make beautiful places.

I sent Angie in by herself and waited at the doorway. I could see the priest at the end of the line giving a wafer to
homeless people too embarrassed to come to regular services to get their fix of God
.
Lay people
made up most of th
os
e helping. The homeless hanging out were of all ages and ethnic groups. Standing there, I took sips from my flask; nothing like rum to help you endure being where you don’t want to be.

A little girl
in pink leggings with a black, frilly layered skirt and pink tee
walked up and looked me over.
Her short hair was black as my own.
I stared into her innocent eyes, and
did not shield her from
the darkness in
side
me.

She smiled.

I let the door close between us and went back around the corner to the stairs. Most likely, Angie would ask around and make me wait, and wait… I sat down.

The little girl appeared, having followed me.
Her clothes were worn and
faded with age, obvious hand me downs from somebody
. Her hair needed to be washed along with her face,
and she was downright starved looking. S
till
, she
smiled, offering me
a wafer.

I took it
and absently thumbed its edge
.
It would be pretty hard to kill someone with this. Probably wouldn’t even fly straight. I liked shurikens better.

She sat next to me.

I said, “Little girl, you should not be so
trusting
to people you don’t know.”
I looked around to make sure no one was looking and smile
d
back. “Where are your parents?”

She nodded at the church, and stopped smiling. “Mom tries hard, but we’re not like others.”

Now that she spoke, I heard something special in her voice, the
inflections
of Old Tongue. She was ninth or tenth generation dragon. I been around Red Fang, my tattoo guy, long enough to know what dragon tongue sound
s
like.

I used the Old Tongue myself, “Is that so?”

She looked surprised that I knew what she was.

A lady hurried around the corner looking panicky till she saw the little girl. The woman ran up to us and went to grab the girl, but froze in fear as our eyes locked.

“You’re her mother?” I asked.

The woman nodded yes, barely daring to breathe. Her glance slid to her daughter.

“She’s not afraid of me,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Sir, if you’ve been bothered,” the lady said.

“Don’t be. She has guts. That’s a good thing. Tell me what you
’re
doing here?”
Using my
Dragon’s
Roar
tat,
I put
just a
little power in my words, feeling a burn between my shoulder blades as if a hot poker were pressing in.

“We just came to get some food, Sir.”

“No, why are you
on the street
when your dau
ghter has dragon blood in her?”

“Her father
’
s dead. He owed a lot of money
to the wrong people
. I have no family, and didn’t know his.” She used simple words, making sure I got the point without taking to long. This woman had been around people with power and had paid for it. That was clear.
She smelled human. I think she feared the dragons might take her child away if she went to them for help. Such things had happened.

I looked around to make sure no one was watching, and that Angie was still inside the church since I didn’t want any whiteness for this. “Here.” I pulling out all the money I had on me, a little over two thousand dollars, and I grabbed a card from an inner pocket of my long coat. “Go to this place. Ask to be taken to Red Fang. Tell him your story and make sure your daughter speaks to him, but first get both of you some new clothes.”

H
er teary eyes on the crisp bills I offered, the
woman
took my gift in
trembling hands
. The little girl stood up and took hold of her mother’s ratty coat.
The child
leaned down and gave me a kiss on the cheek
. Her
eyes changed to those of a dragon
; elongated black-diamonds pupils on oversized swamp-green irises, leaving no visible whites.
A
second
lid
slid out from under her outer eyelid, coving her eyes with a transparent film normally reserved for swimming under water. S
he gave me a fearless stare
, embedding my face in her memory
.

“Don’t think I care for either of you,” I said.

The mom
drew away, smiling, pulling her child along. “Oh no, of course not, that would be absurd.”
She
put the money away, and read the card,
twice
,
paus
ing
in her departure
. “Would you happen to be a—”

“If you ever
abandon the kid
, or tell anyone about this, well—it won’t be pretty.”

The
little
girl
’s smile returned
.
“Come see us one day. You can wave from a
across the street
.”

They left
, turning a corner in many ways.
G
ood deed of the day; did not kill someone who was not afraid of me. Future bad deed of the day; piss in the holy water. Have to keep the balance.

I was
idly
tracing my left arm’s tattoos with a finger when Angie came out. I stood up and walked over to her. “Any luck” I asked.

“She was here, I can still smell her scent, but with so many
unwashed
people it’s hard to pinpoint her,” Angie said.

A piercing scream sounded from the near distance. The shrillness and pitch indicated someone very young.
The little dragon
-half
girl
…

I shoved past Angie, running flat out, and whipped around the corner to the front of the building. The scream came again, from a knot of
fifteen or so vagrants
on the next corner of the church.
Bouncing and rebounding, t
hey appeared to be slam dancing without a mosh pit.
Faces slack, emotionless—this looked the succubus at work once more.

The girl was alone, sitting on the ground, holding a s
k
inned arm. I think she’d gotten a little too close to the action. Hearing my steps, she turned to me
with
an infinity of pain
pooling
in eyes that were human.
The rest of her face had shifted, acquiring scales and a faint greenish tinge. Her lower face had lengthened. With her mouth open in h
orror
, I saw multiple rows of sharp dragon teeth.
Her voice broke with a sob as she turned back to face the
stomping mob of meat puppets.
She pointed.
“Momma’s in there.”

A twist of molten agony shot through my head as I warmed
the
tat
on my
collarbone
,
invok
ing
Dragon
Roar
.
“Stop!”

The word rolled like thunder, hammering at the crowd, but lost force way too quickly as the crowd ignored the command, really pissing me off. The succubus was strong. I’d have gone to Dragon Flame next but I sensed a dulling in the air; something was draining magic, feeding on it. This wasn’t a normal succubus trick.

“No choice then.”

I drew my PPKs and started snapping off head shots down the middle of the crowd. I took time to
also
shoot right and left as I went in. I didn’t want my line of retreat compromised.
I emptied my clips and replaced them, shoving a last couple derelicts out of my way. They fell like puppets with cut strings, no longer needed, their work done. I holstered my weapon, looking down at what was left of the girl’s mother. Broken splinters of bone protruded from skin. Her face was swollen, mangled. Her hair was matted from where her
blood had pooled on the ground.

She’d been stomped to death.

Careful of my expensive shoes, I didn’t get too close.

The little girl streaked past me and threw herself on the body. “Momma, momma, wake up!”
I think she knew death when she saw it, but hope dies hard in the young.
T
he girl fell silent except for the sound of sobbing.

This attack made no sense. The mother was human, no body important.
A warning to me? Maybe. The succubus could have somehow seen me with them earlier and assumed they were important to me. I had given them
two
thousand dollars.

What they say is true. No g
ood deed ever goes unpunished.

Angie appeared.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

“I was searching the area, trying to find the one controlling the men.”

“Any luck?”

“No. Some kind of stupid magic was killing scents again.”

The sun was setting. D
ark
ness was creeping in incrementally. The few people in the area, not inside the church getting a free dinner, made a point of looking away and scurrying off. Dead bodies will do that.

“
There’s
two
thousand dollars of mine on the body.
Grab
it
,
get
the
girl
,
and let’
s go.
”
Another thought occurred to me.
“There’s a blanket in the truck that will keep the blood on her from staining my upholstery.
”

The girl moved like someone in a dream as Angie shepherded her along.

An old bag lady
came out of the church and
stumbled pas
t
me.

One of my protective tats warmed on its own
.
I felt my heart clench in pain to pay the cost
.
The sensation staggered me a second while m
y body tensed, getting ready to take a punch. I stepped left, dodging the old lady’s knife trust
a
t my heart, and grabbed her arm. I was about to
break it,
and stab her with her own knife, but Angie
shoved
the
old
lady out of reach, letting her keep her weapon.

The bag lady dropped her glamour, showing me a teenage girl
that looked oddly familiar
.
If only I paid more attention to women’s faces…
The plain, steel blade in her hand changed to a rippl
ed
dagger
—a stylized sunbeam—
with a dark purple-green liquid dripping o
f
f the edge. The liquid smelled
bitter
. Sarah shot around Angie and tried to stab me again.
Angie could have stopped her but was busy wringing her hands.