Catastrophic Attraction - Eve Langlais Page 0,30
who we have locked up.”
“First cell, the human that survived.”
“Borax didn’t mention any dead.”
“You also never asked,” Casey muttered.
Titan rolled his shoulder. “They didn’t come quietly. The villagers had to fight to subdue them. Not all of them made it.”
“Who survived?”
“The human, male, not too bright. He seems more beast of burden than anything.”
“Who else?”
“You mean what. The rest only have the slightest bit of human in them. There’s a female, furry all over, three long tails, and hands for feet. Doesn’t seem to talk. The other is a male, lizard-like with basic communication, mostly filthy.”
“What of the last one?”
Titan grimaced. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say a ghoul.”
At Roark’s confusion, she explained. “What you know as a demon.”
“Which I’m still going to say is impossible.” Roark didn’t appear ready to believe it.
“I would have agreed until I saw it.” Titan shook his head. “Nasty fucking thing.”
“It’s not impossible,” Casey remarked.
Roark glanced at her. “A human female would never survive copulation with a demon male.”
“Don’t be sexist. Maybe a demon female found herself a pretty boy.”
Titan shuddered. “That is not an image I wanted to have.”
“And it’s also probably not accurate either. I’m talking about intentional breeding,” Casey said.
Roark didn’t hide his repugnance. “Why would anyone want to mix human genes with that?”
“Why do breeding programs exist in the first place?” She shrugged.
“It’s disturbing,” was Titan’s contribution.
“Let’s meet this demon hybrid,” Roark declared.
The soldier watching the door didn’t move as Titan put a key in the lock and entered a sequence of numbers that turned some tumblers. The door opened, and Casey got a whiff of things musty and moist. The prisoner sat on the jutting shelf with a thin foam mattress that served as a bed. His skin, rough and scaled, was a mottled gray. His head was bald. His body bulged with muscle, misshapen and lopsided compared to a human’s. The tips of his fingers ended in curved black claws. Definitely part ghoul and the first time she’d seen one so still.
Usually she was fighting them and only getting a blur of action. When they died, they decomposed quickly.
This demon—much resembling a ghoul she’d seen hiding below ground in a place called the Ruins—raised his head. He turned a baleful red-eyed glare on them from a face all too human, if grotesque. The forehead stretched wide and slanted, the nose flattened and flaring at the nostrils. His lips were thin and pulled back over yellowed teeth, the tips of them pointed.
The eyebrows were jarring, thick and white, the ears rounded instead of ending in a point. But most fascinating of all, he spoke.
“Smells like dinner.” The words emerged in a raspy grumble, and his gaze fell on Casey, who resisted an urge to draw her knife.
“I don’t think so.” Roark’s tone emerged cold and firm.
“And who are you?” The raspy query came with the dark flick of a tongue.
“The man whose questions you’re going to answer. Starting with your name.”
“Fuck you.”
“Are you really going to play that game?” Roark shook his head. His gaze turned intent on the prisoner. She felt it when the darkness began to ooze from the king and focus on the ghoul hybrid. “Your name is Gus, and you’re not from around here, are you?”
It took Casey a moment to realize what Roark was doing. He’d plucked thoughts directly from the demon’s head. Easily, too.
“I’m from the north marshes,” Gus said.
“But you were caught coming from the east.”
“Got lost.” A smile on a demon was a horrible thing.
“He’s lying,” Titan grumbled.
“Yes and no.” Roark didn’t explain, but he did frown. “What do you want with Eden?”
“What’s Eden?”
“What’s your mission?”
“No mission. Just out for a walk.”
“Lying again?” Roark shook his head. “Don’t you know you can’t lie to me? Why did you come here?”
The demon looked away, but Roark kept staring and muttered, “Someone hid parts of his memories.”
“Who?” Titan asked.
“I don’t know. That’s part of what’s hidden. His mind has been carefully wiped of many things. Except his mission.”
“Which is?”
“Find the king.”
“Any king?” Casey asked.
“The Marshland king,” the demon replied with a wide, toothy grin.
“And do what once you did?” Titan asked.
“Eat his brains.”
“Might have helped given you’re none too smart,” Casey muttered.
More questions proved frustrating as the hybrid gave them nonsensical replies. Roark chose a different tack. “Who are your parents?”
Gus didn’t expect it. “What?”
“Mother and father. Who was the human in the pair?”
The demon shook its head. “I don’t know.” The question agitated him, though.
“It was your mom, wasn’t it?” Casey