She picked up the napkins and empty plates as she glanced over her shoulder to where Roth stood. “That boy looks like he must be a handful.”
I flushed, at once very interested in the hem of my shirt. “You could say that.”
The waitress snorted and moved on to another table.
“Why are you so red in the face?”
“No reason.” I grabbed my bag, standing. “You promised to tell me about the one who could do what I can. I think now is the time.”
“It is, isn’t it?” He held the door open for me.
In the waning sunlight, all the buildings in the district looked old and unfriendly. We stopped near a small, neatly kept city park. I stared up at him, waiting.
“I know what you want to know, but I have a question to ask first.”
Fighting my impatience, I gave him a curt nod of assent.
He dipped his chin again, looking terribly innocent. “You’ve never been kissed before, have you?”
“That’s so not your business.” I folded my arms as Roth waited for an answer. “I think it’s obvious. I can’t kiss anyone. You know, the whole soul-sucking thing makes it difficult.”
“Not if you’re kissing someone who doesn’t have a soul.”
I made a face. “And why would I kiss someone who doesn’t—”
He moved unbelievably fast. I didn’t even have a chance to react. One second he was standing a good three feet away from me and the next his hands were gently clasping my cheeks. There was an instant when I wondered how something so strong and deadly could hold anything so carefully, but then he tilted my head back and lowered his own. My heart rate kicked into hyperdrive. He wasn’t going to kiss me. No way—
Roth kissed me.
The brush of his lips was tentative at first, an unhurried sweep of his mouth against mine. Every muscle in my body locked up, but I didn’t pull away like I should’ve, and Roth made a low sound deep in his throat that sent shivers down my spine. His lips caressed mine again, nibbling and clinging to them until they parted on a gasp. He deepened the kiss with a thrust of his tongue. My senses went into overload, firing in every direction. The kiss—it was everything I could’ve imagined a kiss to be and then some. Sublime. Explosive. My heart fluttered wildly, from a yearning so deep, darts of fear shot through my veins.
“See,” he murmured in a thick voice, and he let go, his fingers trailing over my cheeks. “Your life isn’t about all you can’t do. It’s about what you can do.”
“Your tongue is pierced,” I said dumbly.
A wicked gleam filled his gaze. “That’s not the only thing pierced.”
His words really didn’t sink in. Suddenly, I was so angry I thought my head was going to pull an Exorcist. He dared to kiss me. And I actually liked it? I didn’t know who to be more ticked off at—him, or my traitorous body, but wait—where else was he pierced? The last thought caused my brain to play happily in the gutter, and that ticked me off even more.
Roth cocked his head to the side. “Now you’ve been kissed. One thing off the bucket list.”
I hit him.
Cocked back my arm and punched him in the stomach like I was a heavyweight boxer.
He grunted out a choked laugh. “Ouch. That kind of hurt.”
“Don’t ever do that again!”
Even after I hit him, he still looked pleased with himself. “You know what they say about first kisses.”
“You regret them?”
His smile faded. “No. I was going to go with ‘you never forget them.’”
Struggling not to hit him again—or laugh—I took a deep breath. “Tell me about the one who was like me, or I am walking away from here.”
“You’re so dramatic.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Are you sure you want to know about her?”
I was sure of three things: I was never going to forget that kiss, I needed to know about this demon and I was really getting sick of his know-it-all attitude. “Yes. I’m sure.”
“The one who could do what you could was a bit more...invested in her ability,” he said, leaning against the back of a bench.
I pursed my lips. No further explanation needed. The one like me enjoyed taking souls.
“She was also very good at what she did, so good that she was one of the most powerful demons to ever walk topside. There were other things she could do besides taking souls.”
A bundle of nerves formed in my stomach. “What else could she do?”
Roth shrugged, his gaze fixed over my head. “Things you probably don’t want to know about.”
My breath caught as unease spread through me like a choking weed. “Who was she, Roth?”
His eyes met mine, and part of me already suspected what the answer was going to be.
“The demon was your mother,” he said, his gaze never leaving mine.
“Okay.” I swallowed. Hard. And I took a step back. “So that explains what I can do. Makes sense, right? Most people get their mom’s eyes. I just got her demonic soul-sucking ability. And her ring. What was her name, anyway?”
I wasn’t sure I even needed to know her name, because it would make her all the more real to me, but I couldn’t take back the question.
Roth let out a low breath. “Your mother was known by many names, but most knew her as Lilith. And because of that, you’re on Hell’s Most Wanted List.”
* * *
Sitting on the bench, waiting for Morris, I stared straight ahead, not really seeing or hearing anything. Okay, so my mother was a demon who sucked souls. That didn’t take a huge leap of intelligence to figure out, but I hadn’t expected who she was. Lilith? Like the freaking Lilith? The mommy of all things that go bump in the night? There was no way. There had to be another Lilith because that demon hadn’t walked topside for a millennium.
Folklore claimed that Lilith was Adam’s first wife and had been created like him, but she refused to become subservient to Adam. This caused many epic battles between them, eventually leading to God banishing her from Eden and then creating Eve. Needless to say, Lilith wasn’t a happy camper. To get back at Adam and God, she ran off and seduced the archangel Samael. Things went downhill after that.
That much was true, but the rest was mostly bunk from what I’d picked up in the old, crusty religious texts Abbot had in his office. The whole eating-babies myth was utter bull. Lilith never slept with Satan. She never slept with any demons. She slept only with one angel, and the rest were all human consorts. But the Alphas weren’t too pleased with her in the first place, and after she hooked up with Samael, they punished her.
Every child Lilith spawned from that point on was a monster—succubi, incubi and just about every other demonic creature you could think of. Worst of all, she’d birthed the Lilin, a race of demons who could steal souls with a single touch. They were her first and most powerful children. Around that time was when the first generation of Wardens appeared, created by the Alphas to battle the Lilin. They managed to wipe out the Lilin and capture Lilith. Texts claimed that Lilith had been bound to Hell by one of the Wardens, chained down there together with him for all eternity.
Like most things that Alphas did, that just didn’t make sense to me. Through the birthing of so many demons, Lilith turned into one herself—and because the Alphas had punished her, they accidentally created the Lilin, a legion of demons so feared and powerful that they could ensure no human ever made it past the pearly gates.
Humans who died without souls, no matter how good they were in life, existed between Heaven and Hell, stuck in the in-between for all eternity. Plagued with endless thirst and hunger, they turned into violent, vengeful wraiths that even demons were wary of. Wraiths could interact with the living world, and when they did, it usually ended in a gory mess.
Tucking my hair back, I watched a shimmery blue soul trail behind a man in ragged jeans. My mother couldn’t be that Lilith. Because if she was, what did that really say about me? How could I ever overcome a bloodline like that? And if Lilith was really my mother then Abbot would have to know and there was no way that anyone would let a child of Lilith walk around. Besides, there was the whole problem of her being chained to Hell. It wasn’t like someone let her out to get knocked up and birth a kid.
Hell’s Most Wanted List? I shuddered. Was that why the Seeker and a zombie— I cut that thought off. Nothing Roth had told me could be true. What was I even doing considering any of it? Trusting him would be like smacking the Wardens in the face. Demons lied. Even I lied. Well, my lying really didn’t have much to do with being a demon, but still.
Roth was just messing with me, trying to get me to stop tagging. And if Hell was after me, then that could be the only true reason.
Squeezing my fingers around the ring, I stopped a groan from escaping. I’d kissed a demon. Or he’d kissed me. The semantics probably didn’t matter. Either way, my lips had been all up in a demon’s. My first kiss. Dear Lord...
I almost squealed when I spotted the black Yukon, seriously needing a distraction from my troublesome thoughts. I stood and shouldered my bag. A strange shiver wiggled its way down my neck, raising the tiny hairs on my body. It wasn’t like the time before while I waited for Morris. This was different.
I turned, scanning the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Blurs of faint pink and blue and a few darker auras, but no one was missing a soul. Craning my neck, I stretched onto the tips of my toes and tried to see around the corner, past the fleet of cabs lining up. There didn’t seem to be anything demonic, but still, the feeling was familiar.
Morris honked the horn, drawing my attention. Shaking my head, I darted between two cabs and yanked the passenger door open. The feeling hit me again, like a cold hand traveling around my neck.
Shivering, I climbed into the front seat and pulled the door shut, my eyes on the line of taxis. Something...something wasn’t right.
“Do you feel that?” I asked, twisting toward Morris.
He raised his brows and, as usual, said nothing. Sometimes I pretended we had a conversation. I’d even acted it out once or twice for Morris. I liked to think it amused him.
“Well, I feel something weird.” I leaned forward as he eased the SUV out into the congested streets. Three cabs pulled out, too, blocking most of the storefronts and sidewalk. “It’s like there’s a demon nearby, but I don’t see any.”
Three blocks later and the feeling not only lingered, but grew like an ominous cloud. Malice and evil filled the streets, seeping into the Yukon, its presence choking. Beads of sweat appeared on Morris’s creased forehead.
“You feel it now, don’t you?” I gripped the edges of my seat. “Morris?”
He nodded, gaze sharp as he veered around a slow-moving truck and then cut in front of it, hitting the exit ramp. Two cabs were right behind us, plus a whole slew of cars were also entering the beltway.
The malicious feeling hung thick and murky. So potent that it felt as if whatever was causing the suffocating feeling was in the backseat, breathing down our necks. That was a feeling of raw evil, something I’d never picked up on around a Fiend.
“Morris. I think we need to hurry up and get home.”
He was already on it, foot slamming down on the gas as he weaved in and out of the congested traffic. Twisting around in my seat, I peered out the back window—and my heart tripped.
Behind us, a cab was so close I could see its silver cross dangling from the rearview mirror. The fact that the cabbie was inches away from kissing our rear end wasn’t a big deal; cabbies were insane when it came to city driving. No, it was the driver behind the wheel that sent a shot of fear straight through me.
Now I knew where the bad feeling was coming from.
The space around the hunched driver was blacker than any shadow, thick like oil. Thin slivers of silver, tiny specks of humanity, peeked through the darkness of his soul, barely there. His soul spread out from him, seeping through the front of the taxi, slipping over the dashboard and crawling over the window.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered, feeling the blood drain from my face. “The driver’s possessed!”
As soon as the words left my mouth, Morris wrenched the steering wheel to the right. A horn blared. Tires squealed. He slammed down on the brakes, whipping me around as he narrowly avoided clipping the back end of a delivery truck. A series of quick maneuvers later, and several cars were between us and the possessed cabdriver.
I stared at Morris. “Damn. For an old man, you sure know how to drive.”
Morris kept a tight grip on the steering wheel, but he smiled in acknowledgment.
A second later, we were on our exit ramp, flying down the road. The Yukon fishtailed as he hung a quick right, and I shrieked, grabbing the “oh, shit” handle. Then the heavy vehicle lurched forward as he put the gas pedal all the way to the floor. We hit the narrow two-lane stretch of private road at breakneck speeds.
And we weren’t alone.
The taxi was gaining on us, and then it was in the other lane, going in the wrong direction, inching up on us. My heart jumped in my throat as I stared into the taxi.
The blackness of the man’s soul faded, revealing a pale, empty face. The human was on autopilot, completely under the thumb of the demon that had possessed him. Possession, next to murder, was one of the worst crimes, and it was forbidden according to the Law of Balance. Humans lost all free will once a demon breathed its essence into them, possessing them. Only Upper Level demons could possess humans.
Roth? Seemed likely, since he was the only Upper Level demon I’d seen, with the exception of the one that had moved too fast for me to be sure. Dread filled my stomach like lead. Had Roth possessed this man because I’d refused to stop tagging? If so, I’d just put Morris’s life in danger. Anger and guilt swirled inside me, causing my hands to clench until my nails bit into my palms.
Suddenly the taxi was speeding alongside us. Like a pro, Morris kept his gaze trained forward, but a scream built in my throat. My muscles tensed, as if my body already knew what to expect.
Morris swerved. Two wheels went off the road, crunching over dirt. But—oh, God—he was too late. I squeezed my eyes shut, terror seizing me in its tight grip.
The taxi slammed into us.
CHAPTER TEN
The impact was deafening.
Metal crunched and gave way in an explosion of white that sent me sideways and then snapped me back. A second before the airbag smacked into my face, I saw a blur of trees rushing toward the front of the car.
God bless Morris, because somehow, even with an airbag in his face, he turned that steering wheel, spinning the vehicle around so the back end instead of the front slammed into the thick trunk of an ancient tree. But the impact was no less brutal, throwing us backward.
When we finally stopped moving, I was sure I was going into cardiac arrest.
“Morris. Morris!” I pushed at the deflating airbag, coughing as white dust plumed. “Are you okay?”
He leaned back, blinking several times as he nodded. White powder caked his cheeks, but other than a trickle of blood under his nose, he looked fine.
Turning my attention to the other car, I unhooked my seat belt with shaky fingers. The entire front of the cab was a mass of twisted, crunched metal. A body-sized hole was in the windshield. Splotches of a dark red substance coated the edges of the broken glass and splattered the hood.
“Oh, God,” I said, letting the seat belt smack back. “I think the other driver was ejected.”
Scrambling for my bag to get my cell, I smacked at the damn airbag. I needed to call for help—something. Even though the cabbie had hit us, he was possessed and totally not responsible for his actions. He was an innocent human being, and I had to do something. Traffic didn’t come down this road often—
A bloodied, mangled face appeared outside the passenger window. I jerked back, swallowing a scream. Nausea rose swiftly. The face—oh, God—the face was a wreck. Pieces of glass were embedded in his cheeks. The flesh was torn. Rivulets of blood coursed down his face like rain. One eye appeared almost gouged out. His lower lip...it was barely hanging on and his head was bent at an unnatural angle. Dude should be dead, or at least in a coma.
But he was still up and walking.
Not good.
He grabbed the handle and pulled, tearing the Yukon door right off its hinges. He flung it aside and then reached in, bloodied hands shooting straight for me.
One of Morris’s arms came around my shoulders as I scrambled out of the seat, but the damn possessed kept coming. Leaning back against Morris, I brought my knees back and slammed both my feet into his ragged shirt, knocking the man back.