CHAPTER ONE
I loved to people watch. It was still a novelty for me, despite being a card-carrying member of civilization for the past few months. The chillier season seemed to bring a different clientele to the casinos, although—according to security guard chatter—the real diehards emerged in winter. I’d laughed at the time, assuming ‘diehards’ was meant to be a gambling pun, but the guard’s blank expression told me there was no pun intended.
I sat at the small table at the casino coffee shop that faced the poker tables. Despite the early hour, there were plenty of players intent on the game. No wonder Salt made so much money.
A slender figure stepped directly in front of the table and blocked my view. I looked up into the fanged face of Oren, the casino manager and the owner’s right hand vamp. As usual, he was impeccably dressed in a designer suit with pinstripes so thin, they were barely visible.
I squinted. “Is that a new gemstone in your fang?”
“It is. I grew weary of the diamond.”
“Who gets tired of diamonds?” I shook my head. “You might want to check your privilege, Oren.”
He gave an impatient yet delicate huff. “There are more important matters at the moment. I’m afraid you’ll need to leave the coffee.”
I looked at him in disbelief. “Firstly, it’s a vanilla latte with soy milk. Secondly, how long have we known each other?”
“Seems like forever, really.”
“And during that wondrous time, have you ever known me to abandon a caffeinated beverage?”
Oren sniffed. “Duty calls, I’m afraid. A rampaging demon trumps anything in your hand.”
“What if it was a baby goat?” I cracked a smile. “I kid.”
“Miss Wendell,” he said in a no-nonsense voice.
“Fine.” I shoved back my chair and rose to my feet. I felt the weight of the cup’s heavy judgment as I released my grip on it. “What’s the emergency?”
“I believe I gave you a clue when I used the phrase rampaging demon,” Oren said.
My shoulders sagged. I wasn’t ready to face the day, let alone a demon. “Don’t they know it’s a little early for rampaging?”
Oren adjusted his gold cufflinks. “Need I remind you that Salt is a casino? There’s no such thing as too early.”
I wagged a finger. “This is what you get for not having clocks on the walls.”
The vampire ignored me. “She was last spotted pushing down guests in the lobby. The guards were unable to stop her.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “She?”
“She has been identified as a Yatudhanis demon,” Oren said. “They are only female. It seems this one may be under the influence. High as a kite, as the humans say.”
“Thanks for the tip.” I started toward the escalator.
“And Mr. Halpain requests that you not make a scene,” he called after me.
I laughed. It sounded like the demon was already putting on a one-woman show in Atlantica City without my help.
I slid down the handrail of the multi-floor escalator and reached the lobby where it was clear something was amiss. Guests were clustered together and the security team was trying their best to calm them.
I approached the one whose name I remembered. He was distinctive in that he wore his hair buzzed on the side and floppy on top. Most of the guards wore cropped hairstyles because too much hair was considered a liability during a fight.
“Hey, Ducky. I hear there’s a demon on the loose.”
He inclined his head toward the door. “She took off down the boardwalk. Seems like she was partying a little too hard last night. You’re going to have to subdue her.”
I cracked my knuckles. “That’s the plan.”
Ducky held open the door and I shot through it. I blinked instinctively in the bright sunlight. It was always jarring to go from the interior of the casino to the sun’s bright reflection on the ocean. Salt’s position at the northern end of the boardwalk made it an easy decision to hang a right and head south. I passed the T-shirt shop, the water ice kiosk, the pawn shop—there was no sign of any demon, rampaging or otherwise.
Shouts rang out from the paintball center.
I darted inside and scanned the area. There were two teams of werewolves engaged in a fierce battle, but there was no demon among them. They took no notice of me, intent on pelting each other with yellow paint. I left and continued the search.
It didn’t take long to pick up her trail. The remnants of tacos were strewn across the boards. Lettuce and tomatoes stuck to the wood and the seagulls had already shared the happy news of a windfall. Wordlessly, the guy at the taco stand pointed to the right and I carried on.
Roasted chestnuts covered this part of the boardwalk. If this had been a slapstick comedy, I would have slipped on the rolling chestnuts and landed on my ass. I was too agile for pratfalls, though.
I passed another casino also owned by Ingemar Halpain’s vampire family—the Potestas, one of Atlantica City’s two controlling vampire clans. The Opulentia family was ruled by Kingsley Bryant and they controlled the southern end of the boardwalk.
I didn’t technically work for Ingemar. We’d reached an agreement recently, whereby I continued to live in a nice room at Salt with an ocean view in exchange for helping out with security as needed—like right now.
I heard a ruckus coming from the art gallery and ventured inside. Two paintings were face down on the floor and another one had been placed around the neck of the gallery owner like a collar. She looked dazed and confused.
“Where is she?” I asked.
The owner raised a shaky finger and pointed to the door.
This demon was faster than I realized and her destruction was random and silly. Like a toddler, she didn’t seem to have an agenda other than causing chaos.
I ran into the body piercing shop to find a young woman on the floor with a fresh piercing in her nose. Blood dripped from the wound and she looked at me with shell-shocked eyes.
“I didn’t want a piercing in my nose,” she complained.
“It could’ve been worse. She could have aimed lower.” I jerked my head toward her cell phone on the floor nearby. “Call the healer and make sure you don’t get an infection.”
I raced outside and finally spotted the demon at the balloon arcade, the one where you shoot fake blood into a vampire’s mouth and blow up an inflatable balloon. The first to pop the balloon wins, except the fangs block the stream, so you need good aim to fill the balloon quickly.
The demon was gleefully running from gun to gun and exploding the balloons. She looked so happy that I actually felt a little guilty putting an end to her fun.
“Games are over, miss,” I said.
The demon kept her finger on the trigger, turning only her head to look at me. “And who might you be? The Fun Police?”
“Yep. I’ve got the badge and everything. Now put the gun down and let’s get you settled into a nice cozy bed for a nap. You can do all the damage you want in your dreams.”
She smiled and whipped the gun toward me, squirting a stream of crimson liquid into my eyes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumbled.
Her wicked laughter rang in the air as she abandoned her post and sprinted further down the boardwalk.
I chased after her, trying to decide my best course of action. I needed to subdue her without hurting her. She wasn’t a Plague demon. Just a nuisance demon. Centuries ago, the gods sealed off the worst of the worst in a pocket dimension. Thirty years ago, the deadly demons and monsters escaped their prison and invaded our world. Their presence forced supernaturals who’d previously lived in the shadows to emerge, frightening the ignorant humans and kicking off the Awakening. I was only twenty-five, too young to know what life had been like before the Plague, but I’d heard enough stories to have a sense of it.
Before I could catch the demon, my phone buzzed. Inwardly I groaned, but I had to answer or he would just keep calling. “No, Oren. I haven’t caught her yet if that’s your burning question. She’s a wily one.”
“I am aware,” Oren said. “The thing is, she’s now crossed the border, so your services are no longer required. Just linger there for a bit and make sure she doesn’t cross back.”
In other words, the demon had crossed into Kingsley Bryant’s territory, which meant the demon was now the problem of the Opulentia family.
“Are you serious?”
“Am I ever anything else?” he asked.
“You can’t let her run amok. Someone could get seriously hurt.”
“Stand down, Miss Wendell. That is your order.”
“But she…”
“This is not a Pride assignment,” he interrupted. “You’re not saving the world.”
I rolled my eyes and shoved the phone in my back pocket. No, it certainly wasn’t a Pandora’s Pride assignment. A Pride mission meant I’d have a team and weapons—and I’d be allowed to finish my latte first.
I watched from my spot on the boundary line as the Yatudhanis demon continued her merry path of destruction. She pushed over the tandem cyclists, then made her way onto the mini golf course where she disappeared from view. I could imagine what she was doing though. There were plenty of ways to get into mischief on the mini golf course. I hated standing here and doing nothing. It wasn’t my way. Even though the demon had escaped into Kingsley’s territory, I still felt I had an obligation to society at large.
My palms began to itch and my feet quickly followed suit. I bounced on the balls of my feet, unwilling to stay still. You can take the girl out of the Pride for a side job, but apparently you can’t the Pride out of the girl. I spared a glance over my shoulder to see whether any of Ingemar’s cronies were watching me and then sprinted forward toward the mini golf course.
The demon spotted me approaching and picked up the nearest makeshift weapon—the wooden pirate ship at hole number 9. She wrenched the boat from the ground and lifted it overhead with both hands before throwing it at me. I easily dodged the boat and shook my head. Oren asked me not to make a scene? I wasn’t the one they needed to worry about.
“Step away from the putt-putt,” I said.
“You invited your friends, too?” the demon asked. “I’ll take the one on the left. The one on the right looks like he cuddles.” She shuddered. “I despise cuddling.”
“That explains a lot,” I said. I turned around to see two of Kingsley’s vampire goons approaching the entrance. Terrific.
“Hey, fellas,” the demon said, and blew them a kiss.
“I got this,” I called to them. Vampire goons would only escalate the situation. They’d be fighting brawn with brawn and that’s not what the situation required.
Magic, on the other hand, was the perfect solution.
Before they could insert themselves, I ran toward the demon. She yanked a miniature lighthouse from the ground and threw it at me.
I blocked the identified flying object with a simple protection spell. The lighthouse bounced off the invisible barrier and smacked into the demon. She sailed backward and slammed into the castle turret at hole 13. Impressively, the demon stayed on her feet and staggered forward, shaking the dust from her head.
“You’re going to regret that,” she seethed.
“I highly doubt it.”
I vaulted toward her, determined to reach her before the goons. They were strong, but they weren’t very fast—one of my many advantages. Maybe I could flash my fangs, not that I knew how to command their presence. I didn’t want to contemplate my other skills right now—the ones that suggested I had more powers than I realized. The fangs had been a shock to me and were a secret from everyone except Saxon, team leader and resident vampire-angel hybrid.
This time I used magic to place the demon in a protective bubble to prevent her from destroying any more of the golf course. She pushed at the invisible wall and hurled a string of curses at me when she realized her predicament.
“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” one of the vampires asked.
She spit in his direction, but the wad bounced off the invisible wall and hit her in the chest.
“Don’t make me bust out the powerful magic,” I warned. “You’ll wish you’d have come with me peacefully.”
My father had always cautioned me against using magic in public, not that we were in public often. Most of the time our only spectators were the animals that inhabited the Rocky Mountains. My father practiced with me from an early age, doing his best to balance my needs. He wanted me to be able to defend myself in a world overrun by supernaturals, but he didn't want others to know about me. I’d inherited powers from his mage side and that included the special gene that made me a higher-level mage, capable of magic that only a select few could perform. My whole life my father had forced me to drink a daily potion to suppress most of my abilities. At the time, I believed I was fighting a condition known as Melchior’s Syndrome, but I’d recently learned that I never had the disease. Once I stopped taking the potion, abilities revealed themselves like the petals of a flower in full bloom. I was still trying to make sense of it all—my range of abilities and why my father concealed them from me.
“I’m going to let you out now,” I said. “Just come with me voluntarily, please.”
The moment I released the protection bubble, I regretted it. The demon snapped her razor-sharp teeth and began to climb the mini mountain complete with a water feature.
“I’m the king of the mountain,” she yelled in a singsong voice.
“Oh, for gods’ sake,” I grumbled. I held out my hands and channeled my elemental connection to water. I had an entire ocean beyond the boardwalk to draw power from. Might as well put it to good use.
The water that snaked along the mountain began to bubble and steam rose from its surface. The demon stopped climbing and looked down at her foot. Her boot was completely submerged in what was now boiling water.
She released a high-pitched scream and tumbled from the mountainside. I didn’t give her a chance to recover. I bolted forward and grabbed her by the shirt.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing to my beautiful mini golf course?” a voice demanded.
Uh oh.
Slowly I turned to see Kingsley Bryant, one hand on her hip and the other hand clutching a small white dog. She wore a hot pink suit and matching heels. Her blond hair was slicked back in a high ponytail and her blue eyes blazed with fury.
I hoisted the demon by her collar. “I’m saving you from unnecessary mayhem and mischief.”
Kingsley waved her free hand around in a dramatic fashion. “This place was designed by Ricardo Lafayette. Do you have any idea how in-demand he is? Ingemar is going to pay for this. I bet he put you up to it.”
“She left a trail of destruction all the way down the boardwalk. She wouldn’t have stopped here. Your casino would’ve been next.” I pointed across the boards to Sweetie’s. The building towered over this section of the boardwalk.
“My security team would’ve taken care of her,” Kingsley said.
Yeah, right.
“What would you like me to do with her?” I asked.
Kingsley wiggled her fingers in a disdainful gesture. “Throw her in the ocean for all I care. She’s not my problem now.”
I lifted the demon to her feet. “Come on, mischief maker. Let’s find you a nice bed where you can sleep it off.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” the demon snapped.
“Actually, I can.” Along with vampire fangs, I also seemed to have their power to compel. I waited until Kingsley and her cohorts turned to leave and looked directly into the demon’s eyes. “You will walk with me back to Salt and behave yourself for the remainder of your stay.”
The demon nodded and I let her go. We returned to Salt together like two friends out for a morning walk and I delivered her to Ducky.
“I won a prize on the boardwalk,” I said. “She won’t be any more trouble.”
Ducky snorted. “I’ll let the boss know.”
“You might also want to let him know Kingsley’s pissed and will be sending him a bill for the state of the mini golf course.”
“I’ll let you pass along that pertinent information.”
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