Chapter 4
My first thought before I turn around is that this is what I deserve.
For wandering so far South of the Chasm on a Friday night, like James warned. For missing Penny’s birthday. For being what I am.
My second is that I was right earlier. I knew someone saw me slay that demon in the subway.
My third is relief. At least my prey came to me this time. Just the kill I need.
I fish my one and a half daggers out from under my dress, crack my neck, and spin around.
My first blow is aimed directly at his heart, and I can’t lie, I’m impressed when he uses his bare hand to knock my dagger away without so much as a grunt. My second shot sails for his neck, and when he ducks with lightning speed, I’m already winded. Not good.
This far past the Chasm, everything is hotter and more stagnant, as if we’re sloping toward hell. The air is thick in my lungs, the sweat still on my brow. Despite the fact that he’s so cloaked in shadow I can’t see his eyes, I can tell from the way he moves that it’s a demon I’m fighting.
There are no cars to be found on this side street.
No homes, either. Only warehouses and boarded-up storefronts and one dilapidated apartment building.
It’s quiet save for the low-decibel thrum of the music pumping out of Fever Dream a few blocks farther south.
I suck in a breath and rush him again, but he dodges with seamless ease.
It’s not until the demon backs into a pool of streetlight that I get a good look at him.
It only takes me a millisecond—my hunter gene at work once more—to clock his neck.
Peeking out from beneath the curls at his nape is a raised patch of long-since-burned skin.
A brand—the seven-pointed star with horns.
A Brood demon.
And yet the ice-cold fear that slices through me isn’t what shoves all the breath from my lungs.
This guy—this apex predator, the same breed as whoever killed my dad—is gorgeous.
Painfully so. Like those beautiful, serious actors who were made for historical roles. Timelessly handsome. Curled brown hair, high cheekbones, the chiseled jaw of a storybook villain. And piercing, churning blue eyes. The color of a starless dusk.
As he watches me gape at him, I wonder if I’ve ever felt attraction like this before…
Or if perhaps I was drugged back at Cobwebs.
What was in that green margarita? As the daughter of one of the most important people in the city, I’ve been to enough haughty, highfalutin events to bear witness to many good-looking men—and still, this guy is something else.
Of course he is, I tell myself. It’s the same reason I can’t land a blow on him. He’s a Brood demon. A gorgeous Brood demon staring at me like my hunter soul is dinner.
I ought to just flee—trying to beat a Brood is likely futile. But I won’t be able to sleep knowing he’s loose in the city. More honestly, I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t kill something. Aeon bloodlust at its finest, ladies and gents.
I lunge with my daggers once more, thinking of my dad and the men who killed him—and my rage makes me faster.
I nick the demon’s rib cage, ripping through his crewneck sweatshirt.
A passing shaft of golden light from a taxi up the street illuminates the grimace on his face.
The demon takes a step back to duck my next swing and makes his first misstep, tripping over a broken curb.
I pounce, daggers ready, footwork just as my dad taught me—
And land hard on my hands and knees.
The demon…he’s tricked me. I didn’t even notice his foot there. Didn’t even notice the trap he’d set. The stumble over the curb—a fake.
But the handsome demon doesn’t attack while I’m on my knees.
He doesn’t kick me in the ribs like I’m bracing for.
Like I would do. He waits for me to stand.
Patient, like he’s behind an old woman in the checkout line.
None of this is adding up. Why follow me all the way from the subway and pick a fight only to not hit me even once?
“What gives?” I pant, standing to catch my breath.
“I can’t believe you fell for that,” he says, studying his ruined sweatshirt.
Fury roiling, I charge at him and get my broken dagger within an inch of his throat before I realize he hasn’t even flinched. I get a whiff of his bright, citrusy scent. Like lemongrass and evergreens and a bar of soap.
“Your dagger is broken,” he says, Adam’s apple bobbing against the razor edge of my silver.
“What?”
“You ought to get that fixed. One wrong blow and it’ll shatter.”
The way his jaw flexes as he stares at me…He’s nearly too pretty to cut up.
Nearly. I press my dagger deeper, and his skin threatens to split around it. “How long have you been following me?” Maybe it’s hypocritical, but I’m not a fan of being preyed upon by my own damn prey. “Tell me now, or I swear—”
“You have three seconds to remove that blade from my neck before I take it from you.”
He says it calmly. Low and gruff, but calm. Unfazed. This guy’s mesmerizing eyes haven’t even shed their dark blue hue. Not a flash of hungry red to be seen. If my body weren’t humming, I might mistake him for a human man. Clearly, if this demon wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead.
I snarl, lowering my dagger and backing up about six paces.
This demon may be handsome, but he’s still no better than a walking, talking chain saw, just waiting to rip into me.
Any Brood demon knows a hunter’s soul extends their lifespan to nearly triple a mortal’s.
But an aeon’s? Filled with all our twisted sin?
Downright delectable. If Broods are the lions of this animal kingdom, my aeon soul is catnip.
The demon leans against the brick wall of a warehouse and folds his arms across his chest. “I’m Reid.”
“Tell me how long you’ve been following me.”
His eyes sparkle, cold and uncaring. “Long enough.”
“How long?”
“Heard your friend singing. That was worse than the screaming babies on the railcar.”
My blood stops. He was near Penny. “Are you going to tell me what you want?”
“Vivienne, right?”
“It’s Viv.” I hate my full name. It’s dated and formal. Vaguely French, which I am not. My mother insisted on it, and my father only ever called me Viv.
“I’m an instructor at Harker. We’d like to offer you admission.”
My own bark of a laugh startles me—I’m not even sure which part of that insanity to question first. I go with “Harker?”
“Harker Academy for Deviant Defense,” he says, stepping closer. “Exclusive, grueling, prestigious, and hidden right here in Astera. The only college in the world for hunters.” Another step closer. “Just like you.”
A taxi speeds by behind us and I realize my heart is thumping. I take a step backward. “I’d have to be brain-dead to believe anything that comes out of a Brood demon’s mouth.”
“What’s that expression again? Something about books and their covers?” I sneer until he adds, “Do I look like I’m trying to kill you?”
It’s what I was already wondering…He hasn’t even touched me.
I almost ask Why now? I’ve been hunting alone for more than a decade.
But then I remember that regular hunters gain their abilities at twenty-one.
Only aeons can hunt before they can ride a bike.
And if my father taught me anything, it was to never reveal that we were aeons.
Never. Other lymantrians hunted our kind to virtual extinction centuries ago.
Not pure enough to be hunters, they said. Fell into the darkness too easily.
The better question might be why, if this “academy” is real, my father didn’t tell me about it. He wouldn’t have kept something like this from me. When the memory of his pained screams from that night sound in my ears, I can’t help my flinch. Reid stares at me with mild curiosity.
“If Harker were real,” I bite out, “I’d know about it. I’ve lived in Astera all my life.”
“That’s why they need a recruiter. To find the stray dogs.”
“Real nice.”
“You work at the Windsor, right?”
My eyes narrow. “So you’ve been fully stalking me.”
“Take this.” Reid pulls a coin out of his back pocket.
The small antique coin is dwarfed by his large hand and long fingers.
I take it gingerly, even as my heart races, and inspect both carved sides.
Caked in rust, engraved with lymantrian lettering…
This coin might be a thousand years old.
Fiona would flip. Reid must be able to tell he’s gotten to me, because he takes one step closer, and I don’t back up this time.
“On Monday morning, use it in the broken ticket machine in the utility closet off the lobby.”
But…This is insane, right? There’s no gateway to a demon-slaying collegiate campus in the middle of the most well-regarded museum in the country.
“I can’t afford college.” It’s a very dumb thing to say, but my mind is stalling out.
“Harker is free for students. We have our own wealthy benefactors. The Citadel is housed on campus.”
“The Citadel?”
Reid ignores me. “Orientation is Monday at eight. You don’t have to do this alone, Viv.”
I’ve been on my own a lot longer than he thinks. “I like working alone, I—”
“Fine. If you’re going to fight for this city all on your own, don’t you think you owe it to yourself to be the best hunter you can be? Isn’t that your responsibility?”
My muscles tense. I eye the brand on Reid’s neck.
But he only backs up toward Main—the street that cuts from STC all the way up to the Windsor. “Use the coin, huntress. See for yourself.”
And then he’s gone.