Touched by Fire (Demons of New Chicago #1) - Kel Carpenter Page 0,9

demon stood and my mouth went dry. All this time the solution to my problem had been right under my nose in this same city. Now that I’d found it, though, I had bigger problems to contend with than the idiot who should have known better than to try this after the first time.

The demon had to be over six feet tall and built of solid muscle. The shadows still clung to him, but I could see through them, taking in the contour of muscle and the markings that lined his arms and shoulders and back. They looked like tattoos, but I knew better.

A demon wore their name upon their body. Their true name.

It encompassed all that they were: magic, soul, and flesh—and it was completely unreadable to humans, or anyone for that matter, apart from other demons.

“You opened the door,” the demon said, tilting his head. Then, slowly, he turned his cheek. One side of his full mouth curved up in an inhuman smile. “But you are not the one that calls.” He turned around, and my eyes dropped to the ground just beyond him, to the girl.

She laid with her arms sprawled. Dark hair swept to one side, her face was turned at just enough of an angle that I could see her expression.

The glassy-eyed look was hollow. Any sign of life gone.

I swallowed.

Dead.

She was dead.

The magic to summon and contain the demon in their circle had eaten entirely through her and somehow not harmed me. Had neither of us been there, it would have taken its toll on the coven. As it was, we were—and it hadn’t made a damn difference in keeping her alive.

That realization settled around me. If I’d killed the coven as I’d been hired to do, she might have actually lived.

I didn’t, and her death would follow me to the grave.

Few did, even after years of killing. But this one would.

This one was personal.

My fingers felt numb around the handle of the gun. I slowly raised my gaze from the dead teen to the demon in front of me.

Eyes the color of steel and winter nights stared back.

Cold. So cold.

My chest squeezed as my breath caught in my throat. He was the most beautiful and terrifying thing I’d ever seen. The sharp angles of his face were savage. His physical form was perfection, but it was those eyes that told the truth of what he was. The beast beneath the man shone in them.

“We humbly offer this sacrifice as payment—” the man started. His voice harsh and grating.

“Silence, human,” the demon commanded. It only served to rile the coven leader further.

“We have summoned you, creature of the night, being of sin and shadows. You are ours to command!” He raised his voice toward the end, and yet the demon didn’t react.

I wasn’t shocked by his lack of subservience. While the knowledge was almost nonexistent, I knew that summoning didn’t actually gain a coven control of the creature they brought to the world. That’s part of what made it so dangerous.

That and the fact that the magic they used to call them forth nearly burned every member to their source. They could barely complete the actual summoning, let alone what it would take to truly bind a creature from beyond.

The demon regarded me, turning its full attention my way.

The thing that surprised me was its total lack of reaction. There was no anger. No wrath. If anything, he seemed not to care at all what the coven leader said.

He was too busy staring at me.

“You,” he said softly, in that voice of night. “It is you.”

“What is me?” I asked him. The words came out softer than I’d intended. His nostrils flared as he took a step in my direction, not even sparing Claude Lewis a glance.

“You are the one that called.” He took another step, and my very tiny sense of self-preservation kicked in. I stepped back. The demon narrowed his eyes.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Not like this, anyway.

They were supposed to summon it, and I would bargain for information. If I were lucky, the creature would turn on them. If not, I had enough bullets.

But this . . . this heat, this pounding . . .

This wasn’t supposed to be here.

But neither was Claude Lewis.

I’d come here willing to do anything for an answer, and I’d been presented with two.

That stumped me. Without bargaining with the demon, I had little chance of walking away. I needed him on my side, even if