Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

drawing blood from my lip. It was either be executed like a good little girl or end up too beaten for an open casket.

“I hate this,” I sighed. Another reason why I’d stopped kicking down doors that I had no business kicking down. More often than not, I found situations like this on the other side. You never really learn, do you, Wilder? “Shut up, will you?” I told myself crossly. Anton raised an eyebrow.

“Are you a crazy woman on top of it?”

“Quite possibly,” I agreed. “But not as crazy as you are to shoot a cop in the head.” The metal was freezing under my back, and the small .32 pistol Anton held looked disproportionately large so close to my face.

“One cop,” Anton said, raising his pistol. It was shiny and nickel-plated, one of those penis replacements gangsters like to wave around. “Lots more where you came from.”

So much for scaring him straight. He was the one who was armed, so I would have to be the one who was faster.

“Do me a favor,” I said. “Shoot me so that they can have an open casket? My mother will kill herself otherwise.” I cut a glance at him, putting as much sincerity in my voice as I could muster in my current state of Oh crap oh crap I’m going to die.

Anton muttered something in his native language. “Please,” I said again. “Right through the heart. Kill me just as fast as in the head. I’m not wearing body armor. You can check.”

“You have no leverage to make demands of me,” he snapped.

“Anton,” I said, putting as much sincerity as I could into my voice, considering that I was panicking on the inside. “All I want is to have my cousin and my aunt and my mother be able to say good-bye to me. Iknow what’s coming. I’m not going to fight you. Just shoot me in the heart. Please.”

Anton’s nostrils flared. He was tall and thin compared to the pudgy thugs in the other room, and his face was drawn with blue varicose veins snaking across his cheeks, burst vessels in his nose. An ex-junkie, maybe, certainly not current, but his eyes had that blankness that comes with witnessing too much that people aren’t meant to see.

He dropped the pistol, reaching out his free hand, patting me down. “Roll onto your stomach.”

I did as he asked and he felt down the length of my back. He touched my Sig and threw it away from us. “You think you’re smart, huh? You think you’re going to grab your police gun and shoot me instead?” He grabbed my hair and slammed my face into the metal table. “Deceitful whore. Now I’m going to do it right between the eyes. For your mother.”

“No,” I said, “No, you’re not.” I grabbed his wrist, twisted the hand holding my hair, and bit him. Hard.

Anton screamed as my fangs sank into the fleshy part of his thumb, the blood coursing over my tongue driving me straight back into that black pit that lurked in me, where the monster waited, pacing and chained.

I shoved him away from me and he windmilled, bleeding, the gun moving away from my head. I snatched my holdout weapon from my ankle and went after him, instead of shooting him on the spot like I should have. I was lost in the lust for the hunt, and I hit Anton in the midsection, tackling him to the tile with a grunt from both of us.

Straddling his torso, I pressed the snub .38 against the soft part of his jaw with a growl. “Shoot me?” I demanded, pulling the hammer back. It was a double-action revolver, so I didn’t need to cock it to fire, but the effect of the chambers rotating scares the piss out of anyone with sense.

“I … I’m sorry,” Anton muttered thickly. Blood dribbled from his mouth. He had bitten his tongue when he went down. I bared my own bloody teeth at him and he gave a shiver. For such a big bad werewolf, it sure didn’t take much to break his dominance.

Then again, having a gun pressed against your chin has that effect on most people. “You’re damn right you’re gods-damned sorry,” I told him. “Who killed Lily Dubois?”

“I got no idea what you’re even talking about,” Anton hissed.

“Right, because I totally and completely believe you,” I said. I pressed harder, curling my finger around the trigger. “You have three seconds. One.”

“I don’t know!” Anton panted. “There are a lot of girls. Nikolai ships them by the week. I don’t know her!”

“Two,” I snarled.

“I don’t know her!” Anton howled. He latched his hands to my shoulders and tossed me off of his torso. I went tumbling to the floor, the .38 skittering out of my grasp. He was strong, too strong for his size, and I hit the floor hard enough to crack tile.

Anton scrambled for his pistol and I grabbed for the .38, and we both brought the guns to bear at the same moment. He was back to smirking. “You like to be in charge, eh? Think you’re getting what you want and you go soft.”

“You’re a very good actor,” I said. “You might have a career if you quit your day job.”

Anton spat on the ground. “You put that gun down.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, backing up slowly. If I could just get some cover between us, I could make a run for the Nova. That was a hell of a big if, though. “I’m going to keep holding it, and we’re going to work out our differences like adults, and not little kids playing cops and robbers.”

“I’ll shoot you in the fucking head!” he yelled, obviously fed up with my mouthy ways.

I risked a quick look over my shoulder. There was a dark hallway and a set of stairs beyond, dark and slick with mildew and moisture as the cold air ended and the dank smell of below ground