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

his eyes down to his Ukrainian-language celebrity magazine. “Come on,” Dmitri said.

The elevator was the old-fashioned kind that had a gate and a guy in a monkey suit to press the button for you.

“Third floor,” Dmitri told him. The gate rolled shut and we started to move, at roughly the speed of a glacier.

“Did that seem easy to you?” I said. Dmitri lifted his shoulder.

“Nothing easy about getting attacked and assaulted by a witch, Luna. But you hit him a good one. He’ll live, but he won’t be pretty.”

I leaned against the gate and rubbed my forehead. “It’s just … We broke in. We got the jump on him and his goons, and we got his computer. Aside from the gunshot, it was like some movie snatch-and-grab, total smooth sailing. He’s a witch, Dmitri. They never give anything away for free.”

“Luna, you want to know what I think?”

“Am I gonna hear it, anyway?”

“I think you’re overanalyzing things,” he said. “We got what we wanted. Now forget about the Belikovs and let’s find my daughter so you can go home and I can get her back to her mother.”

I sighed, but I let it go. Dmitri would never admit that he was wrong—another one of his charming traits. There had been good ones, too, don’t get me wrong, but the stuff that stuck with me was the temper and the stubbornness, the alpha-male attitude that made me feel like I was suffocating when we lived together.

The hotel room was small, European-style, with a sink in the corner and a shared bathroom down the hall. I went to the window and checked the street out of habit. A few cars were parked along the curb, but no one I recognized was on the street.

“I think we’re safe,” I said to Dmitri. “For now.”

Kirov knocked on the door and came in, trailed by a thin girl with lank blonde hair and a laptop case. “This is Jocelyn,” said Kirov.

“Yo,” Jocelyn said. I cocked my eyebrow at her.

“You’re American.”

“Canadian,” Jocelyn said, slinging her case onto the bed. “Where’s the machine you need me to crack?”

“Jocelyn is a freelancer,” Kirov explained. “She kindly helps out the pack in exchange for our protection.”

“Protection from what?” I asked her.

“I’m not just a programmer,” said Jocelyn. “I was a technomancer back home, before some caster witches decided they didn’t like my look and chased me out of Toronto. Americans, naturally. I blame your country entirely for me living in this shithole.”

“Well, at least she’s pleasant,” I said to Dmitri. Jocelyn heaved a sigh.

“Do you want me to crack this machine or not?”

Dmitri handed her the laptop. “We need the password, and the files.”

Jocelyn sniffed. “Amateur hour. You really got me out of bed for this?” She booted up the machines and attached a USB cable from her laptop to Grigorii’s.

“Hmm,” she said after a minute. “Maybe we’re not dealing with a complete moron. He’s got a working on his hard drive.”

I blinked. “He enchanted his hard drive?”

“Or had another technomancer do it for him. We’re common around here. Must be all the radiation or something.”

“Can you crack it?” Dmitri said. He paced, too big for the space, and I grabbed his arm and jerked him into a chair.

Jocelyn sighed, punching in commands on her own. “Give me a few minutes of peace, all right? I need to program a working to crack his security, and offensive spells take time.” She started typing, her keyboard the witch’s alphabet, and I felt a prickle of magick down my back.

I retreated to the window again, keeping watch. I knew I was being ridiculous, hyper-vigilant, but seeing Grigorii again and feeling his hand against my skin had stirred the primal anger that lived deep in my hindbrain.

“You all right?” Dmitri said at my shoulder. His hands traveled to my neck, massaging. “You look twitchy.”

I jerked away from him. “Don’t do that.”

He frowned. “I’m just trying to keep you calm.”

“I am fucking calm,” I snarled. “I don’t want to be touched, all right?”

“What’s the matter with you?” Dmitri said quietly. “If you’re cracking up, don’t do it in front of someone from my pack. You’re embarrassing me.”

I looked back at him, saw the black spilling out from his irises, covering the green and white. Turning his eyes into the deep, fathomless oceans of inhumanity that let the daemon look back at me.

“Dmitri,” I said quietly. “Look at yourself.”

“You’re mine,” he hissed. “Whether you believe it or not. That man can put his hands on you, but he can never erase my mark.”

Something about the voice triggered a memory in me, a daemon staring at me, hungering for me … and then backing away.

Good parting, one who wears the mark of Asmodeus.

My jaw set, and I took a step back from Dmitri, only to bang into the window.

“Asmodeus?”

“I warned you, Insoli,” he whispered, bending close to my ear. Dmitri’s hands reached out and grasped my arm, squeezing hard enough to bruise. “I warned you that we’d see one another again.”

I was paralyzed, as much as if Grigorii still had me under his working. The last time I’d seen Asmodeus, the terms had been less than civil. The daemon had saved my life, and I had wiggled out of our bargain in return. Maybe not very sporting of me, but it was a daemon we were talking about, not a homeless orphan.

“Nothing to say, Insoli?” the daemon whispered in Dmitri’s voice. His eyes danced, gold flaming up in the depths.

“Leave,” I snarled. “Leave him alone. You don’t have a fight with Dmitri, you have a fight with me.” I shot a look at Kirov and Jocelyn, but they were absorbed in Jocelyn’s working. Not that they’d see what I saw. Asmodeus was shy.

“You are so wrong, Insoli,” he purred. “So very, very wrong.”

I raised my chin. “If you don’t leave Dmitri alone, I am going to summon you and exorcise you back into the Dark Ages. You know I will.”

He laughed, low in his throat.